Richard J Hewitt
@richardjhewitt.bsky.social
Ramón y Cajal Research Fellow
@IEGD_CSIC, researcher integrated environmental modelling & policy, archaeology
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4169-8647
@IEGD_CSIC, researcher integrated environmental modelling & policy, archaeology
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4169-8647
Great stuff
December 4, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Great stuff
Very well put…
> The colonisation of educational institutions and universities by technology monopolies [..] therefore has nothing to do with promoting learning. The aim of technology companies is to extract value from services and data, replacing the original purpose of public education with corporate objectives.
Who are the machines that write probable sentences for?
For Big Tech, de-skilling and dependency are intertwined objectives: users who have become incapable of even basic writing and arithmetic will be hostages to proprietary computer systems.
@olivia.science
zenodo.org/records/1781...
For Big Tech, de-skilling and dependency are intertwined objectives: users who have become incapable of even basic writing and arithmetic will be hostages to proprietary computer systems.
@olivia.science
zenodo.org/records/1781...
December 4, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Very well put…
Indeed, the ideas behind degrowth are sensible, but the label is off-putting to many people. Potentially easily fixed…
Once people understand what Degrowth is, the majority support it (74–84% in the UK and 67–73% in the US), regardless of the label. See our new research in @thelancet.com www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
@giorgoskallis.bsky.social @jasonhickel.bsky.social @F. Basso @lsepbs.bsky.social @cusp.ac.uk
@giorgoskallis.bsky.social @jasonhickel.bsky.social @F. Basso @lsepbs.bsky.social @cusp.ac.uk
December 2, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Indeed, the ideas behind degrowth are sensible, but the label is off-putting to many people. Potentially easily fixed…
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
Ah, reviewer #3
Social media, eh? Actually from a pamphlet published in Berlin, in around 1828.
December 1, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Ah, reviewer #3
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
Think about what it takes from us and especially learners bsky.app/profile/oliv...
I split AI into 3 non-mutually exclusive types (see Table 1 above): displacement (harmful), enhancement (beneficial), and/or replacement (neutral) of human cognitive labour. More later possibly, but see Tables 2 to 4 (attached or here: arxiv.org/pdf/2507.19960) for the worked through examples. 2/n
November 30, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Think about what it takes from us and especially learners bsky.app/profile/oliv...
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
Much more right here in our brand new, free, definitive assessment of why climate action is struggling. cssn.org/news-researc...
Global Assessment - Brown Climate Social Science Network
Climate advocacy has not failed, climate policy has been sabotaged, explains a new open access book, Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment.
cssn.org
November 30, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Much more right here in our brand new, free, definitive assessment of why climate action is struggling. cssn.org/news-researc...
Fantastic!!!
Nissan got this nailed 12 years ago: youtu.be/vog7yDmcDNQ?...
Gas powered daily life
YouTube video by lilis1000
youtu.be
November 29, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Fantastic!!!
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
So many examples.....the Canadian's government's recent pipeline deal, Biden's various permitting reform bills, Hochul's gas / wind farm deals in New York, Australia's ultra-lax permissiveness for FF projects, the UK's wild pro-CCS positions
November 29, 2025 at 9:50 PM
So many examples.....the Canadian's government's recent pipeline deal, Biden's various permitting reform bills, Hochul's gas / wind farm deals in New York, Australia's ultra-lax permissiveness for FF projects, the UK's wild pro-CCS positions
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
So you have a centrist government comfortable with doing deals for new fossil infra in exchange for pro-climate policy, a fanbase that excuses it as fundamentally harmless, and a reality of wildly insufficient renewable energy growth and shockingly sticky yearly growth of coal, gas and oil use
November 29, 2025 at 9:49 PM
So you have a centrist government comfortable with doing deals for new fossil infra in exchange for pro-climate policy, a fanbase that excuses it as fundamentally harmless, and a reality of wildly insufficient renewable energy growth and shockingly sticky yearly growth of coal, gas and oil use
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
I think overconfidence in a technological, free-market and autopilot energy transition also inspires a follow-on dismissiveness around governments approving, supporting or encouraging fossil fuel infrastructure (on the grounds that it won't compete with cheap renewables and therefore isn't a worry)
November 29, 2025 at 9:47 PM
I think overconfidence in a technological, free-market and autopilot energy transition also inspires a follow-on dismissiveness around governments approving, supporting or encouraging fossil fuel infrastructure (on the grounds that it won't compete with cheap renewables and therefore isn't a worry)
Good piece, interesting
It happened! The @nytimes.com profiled Paulina!
The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley
Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish,” which offered dire predictions about the tech world’s love for libertarianism, is finding fans. It only took 25 years.
Gift Link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...
The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley
Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish,” which offered dire predictions about the tech world’s love for libertarianism, is finding fans. It only took 25 years.
Gift Link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...
November 27, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Good piece, interesting
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
It happened! The @nytimes.com profiled Paulina!
The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley
Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish,” which offered dire predictions about the tech world’s love for libertarianism, is finding fans. It only took 25 years.
Gift Link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...
The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley
Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish,” which offered dire predictions about the tech world’s love for libertarianism, is finding fans. It only took 25 years.
Gift Link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...
November 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM
It happened! The @nytimes.com profiled Paulina!
The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley
Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish,” which offered dire predictions about the tech world’s love for libertarianism, is finding fans. It only took 25 years.
Gift Link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...
The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley
Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish,” which offered dire predictions about the tech world’s love for libertarianism, is finding fans. It only took 25 years.
Gift Link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...
Disappointing but sadly not unexpected. Carney is a conventional, extractivist economist, limits to growth etc don’t interest him. Will just deliver more of the same etc etc ad infinitum. Our political systems can’t deliver leaders able to pull the plug on fossil fuels. Yet.
Mark Carney’s disgraceful sellout of every one of us who voted for a climate leader instead of an arsonist includes: “working with oil sands companies to strike a deal by April on implementing the Pathways project, which focuses on carbon capture and storage.” Pathways is a greenwashing scam
No, the Canadian oil sands are not making "clear strides to net-zero."
The companies are running all these big ads making promises, without explaining what they are. It is all a fantasy.
lloydalter.substack.com
November 27, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Disappointing but sadly not unexpected. Carney is a conventional, extractivist economist, limits to growth etc don’t interest him. Will just deliver more of the same etc etc ad infinitum. Our political systems can’t deliver leaders able to pull the plug on fossil fuels. Yet.
More inexcusable AI slop ending up in apparently “reputable” journals. What’s going on @springernature.com - only care about the money, is that it?
Hello @springernature.com - you’ve just published another bit of nonsense in Scientific Reports 🙁
Uhh,,, Figure 1 shows you... what exactly? Trying to understand Medical fryrmbial, runctitional features and mum's legs going through concrete.
This whole article is a bit of a disaster. And it's very difficult to find other published work for the author. Strange! 🧪
(via @smutclyde.bsky.social)
This whole article is a bit of a disaster. And it's very difficult to find other published work for the author. Strange! 🧪
(via @smutclyde.bsky.social)
November 27, 2025 at 7:01 AM
More inexcusable AI slop ending up in apparently “reputable” journals. What’s going on @springernature.com - only care about the money, is that it?
Oh yes
Do not miss @attackerman.bsky.social's modest proposal today: Nationalize AI!
How To Expropriate An Artificial Intelligence Oligarchy
An industry whose bubble is set to burst is crucial to U.S. national security, you say?
www.forever-wars.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Oh yes
Brilliant piece from last year worth revisiting in the light of the COP30 fiasco www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The social construction of sustainable futures: how models and scenarios limit climate mitigation possibilities
This article shines a light on the act of social construction of climate change mitigation as a policy issue at the hands of expert bodies enjoying epistemic power, notably the Intergovernmental Pa...
www.tandfonline.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:54 AM
Brilliant piece from last year worth revisiting in the light of the COP30 fiasco www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Good piece
My latest: #COP30, global climate politics, and what happens next — for @theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
November 24, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Good piece
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
Don't call it AI or LLM. Call it the Expensive Mistake Generator.
This great thread makes a point I've been trying to convey for years. Calling all data-driven prediction or decision software "AI" is a huge gift to LLM hypemen, who want people to believe, incorrectly, that LLM data centers are crucial for solar forecasting or operating buildings and power grids.
Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪
November 22, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Don't call it AI or LLM. Call it the Expensive Mistake Generator.
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
So, below is EU President von der Leyen saying that the EU is "not fighting fossil fuels, only emissions."
And here is the Saudi envoy to COP30 saying exactly the same thing.
I'm telling you: climate politics are unified around the lie that we can keep fossil fuels & still deal w climate anyway.
And here is the Saudi envoy to COP30 saying exactly the same thing.
I'm telling you: climate politics are unified around the lie that we can keep fossil fuels & still deal w climate anyway.
November 21, 2025 at 10:19 PM
So, below is EU President von der Leyen saying that the EU is "not fighting fossil fuels, only emissions."
And here is the Saudi envoy to COP30 saying exactly the same thing.
I'm telling you: climate politics are unified around the lie that we can keep fossil fuels & still deal w climate anyway.
And here is the Saudi envoy to COP30 saying exactly the same thing.
I'm telling you: climate politics are unified around the lie that we can keep fossil fuels & still deal w climate anyway.
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
yes, sure bsky.app/profile/iris...
“While the AI industry claims its models can “think,” “reason,” and “learn,” their supposed achievements rest on marketing hype and stolen intellectual labor. In reality, AI erodes academic freedom, weakens critical reading, and subordinates the pursuit of knowledge to corporate interests.”
AI Is Hollowing Out Higher Education
Olivia Guest & Iris van Rooij urge teachers and scholars to reject tools that commodify learning, deskill students, and promote illiteracy.
www.project-syndicate.org
November 19, 2025 at 1:33 PM
yes, sure bsky.app/profile/iris...
Interesting. I am terrible at arguing my point. I always get lost in details or concede that my opponent could easily be right. I guess good debaters have quick wits but also cast-iron self belief…
I was a debate kid and what I learned is that the best people at arguing do not believe or care about what they’re saying.
People love to talk about how awful theater kids are, and they’re not wrong, but let’s be real, debate kids have made this country a lot worse
November 18, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Interesting. I am terrible at arguing my point. I always get lost in details or concede that my opponent could easily be right. I guess good debaters have quick wits but also cast-iron self belief…
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
18/11/25 - nocturn
November 18, 2025 at 7:33 PM
18/11/25 - nocturn
Reposted by Richard J Hewitt
Profits from scientific publishing are eye-watering, costing us billions. In ‘The Drain of Scientific Publishing’ (arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820), (building on ‘The Strain of Scientific Publishing’ doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00327) we show how it is harmful – and unnecessary.
The Drain of Scientific Publishing
The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science. We need the most powerful members of the research community, funders, governments and ...
arxiv.org
November 12, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Profits from scientific publishing are eye-watering, costing us billions. In ‘The Drain of Scientific Publishing’ (arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820), (building on ‘The Strain of Scientific Publishing’ doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00327) we show how it is harmful – and unnecessary.