Ryan Hagen
@alltheshapes.bsky.social
Sociologist studying risk, disaster, and social change
http://ryan-hagen.com
http://ryan-hagen.com
An existential threat to online surveys: LLMs could “transform survey fraud from a labor-intensive/low-margin cottage industry into a potentially lucrative and scalable black market for fraudulent data.”
Worse: LLMs let bad actors systematically bias results by coordinating synthetic responses.
Worse: LLMs let bad actors systematically bias results by coordinating synthetic responses.
The potential existential threat of large language models to online survey research | PNAS
The advancement of large language models poses a severe, potentially existential threat
to online survey research, a fundamental tool for data coll...
www.pnas.org
November 24, 2025 at 2:40 PM
An existential threat to online surveys: LLMs could “transform survey fraud from a labor-intensive/low-margin cottage industry into a potentially lucrative and scalable black market for fraudulent data.”
Worse: LLMs let bad actors systematically bias results by coordinating synthetic responses.
Worse: LLMs let bad actors systematically bias results by coordinating synthetic responses.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Is AI making job recruitment less meritocratic? We're getting some v interesting research studies on this question now, and the news is... not good. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & I dive in, in the latest edition of our newsletter The AI Shift www.ft.com/content/e5b7...
November 14, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Is AI making job recruitment less meritocratic? We're getting some v interesting research studies on this question now, and the news is... not good. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & I dive in, in the latest edition of our newsletter The AI Shift www.ft.com/content/e5b7...
lmao what’s next a defense intelligence company called Palantir?
This is a real flight school, teaching people to fly planes!!! Like????
November 14, 2025 at 2:48 AM
lmao what’s next a defense intelligence company called Palantir?
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
RFK Jr's response to someone collapsing nearby him was to haul ass out of the room as quickly as possible
November 6, 2025 at 5:45 PM
RFK Jr's response to someone collapsing nearby him was to haul ass out of the room as quickly as possible
“theorists of late modernity were preoccupied with how … social actors became ‘paralyzed by increasingly uncertain futures.’ Quite to the contrary, we find that people actively develop cultural tools to adapt to ‘new species of trouble.’ We refer to these tools as repertoires of repair.” /1
Repertoires of repair: managing ontological insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic
Abstract. This article examines the practices used by people who, while in a state of crisis, attempt to restore the sense of continuity and dependability
academic.oup.com
November 3, 2025 at 5:33 PM
“theorists of late modernity were preoccupied with how … social actors became ‘paralyzed by increasingly uncertain futures.’ Quite to the contrary, we find that people actively develop cultural tools to adapt to ‘new species of trouble.’ We refer to these tools as repertoires of repair.” /1
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back!
Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.
Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!
#MundaneHalloween
Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.
Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!
#MundaneHalloween
November 2, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back!
Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.
Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!
#MundaneHalloween
Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.
Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!
#MundaneHalloween
How do people react when they face a crisis that breaks their trust in the world around them? In a new paper, I and Denise Milstein analyze the ‘repertoires of repair’ people used during the first months of the COVID pandemic to cope with pervasive uncertainty and isolation.
(Gift link)
(Gift link)
Repertoires of repair: managing ontological insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic
Abstract. This article examines the practices used by people who, while in a state of crisis, attempt to restore the sense of continuity and dependability
urldefense.com
October 31, 2025 at 6:32 PM
How do people react when they face a crisis that breaks their trust in the world around them? In a new paper, I and Denise Milstein analyze the ‘repertoires of repair’ people used during the first months of the COVID pandemic to cope with pervasive uncertainty and isolation.
(Gift link)
(Gift link)
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
"...the idea that plants should be considered part of society is not a new one; it’s just new to some people," writes @sarahelton.bsky.social. 🌿
Free to read, download, and share ➡️ journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
Free to read, download, and share ➡️ journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
October 29, 2025 at 5:43 PM
"...the idea that plants should be considered part of society is not a new one; it’s just new to some people," writes @sarahelton.bsky.social. 🌿
Free to read, download, and share ➡️ journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
Free to read, download, and share ➡️ journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
“What we need to elaborate is … a distinct project of probing how life and death, growth and destruction, prosperity and peril, are made routine or exceptional.”
The fine folks at Sociologica have reissued my & Rebecca Elliott’s 2021 essay collection on critical disaster studies as an e-book…
The fine folks at Sociologica have reissued my & Rebecca Elliott’s 2021 essay collection on critical disaster studies as an e-book…
amsacta.unibo.it
October 29, 2025 at 1:05 PM
“What we need to elaborate is … a distinct project of probing how life and death, growth and destruction, prosperity and peril, are made routine or exceptional.”
The fine folks at Sociologica have reissued my & Rebecca Elliott’s 2021 essay collection on critical disaster studies as an e-book…
The fine folks at Sociologica have reissued my & Rebecca Elliott’s 2021 essay collection on critical disaster studies as an e-book…
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
A major front of the current information war: getting your facts, frames, propaganda, disinformation, etc. into the AI systems that create so much of the content we see and are rapidly becoming the de facto “ground truth” of the internet.
"ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok are serving users propaganda from Russian-backed media when asked about the invasion of Ukraine, new research finds." www.wired.com/story/chatbo...
Chatbots Are Pushing Sanctioned Russian Propaganda
ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok are serving users propaganda from Russian-backed media when asked about the invasion of Ukraine, new research finds.
www.wired.com
October 27, 2025 at 1:26 PM
A major front of the current information war: getting your facts, frames, propaganda, disinformation, etc. into the AI systems that create so much of the content we see and are rapidly becoming the de facto “ground truth” of the internet.
I kept thinking during House of Dynamite that I hadn’t been so stressed out by a movie since Uncut Gems. Then realized that what we need but will never get is a Safdie Brothers adaptation of The 2020 Commission Report.
The 2020 Commission Report On The North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The U.s.: A Speculative Novel
A Speculative Novel
bookshop.org
October 26, 2025 at 11:18 AM
I kept thinking during House of Dynamite that I hadn’t been so stressed out by a movie since Uncut Gems. Then realized that what we need but will never get is a Safdie Brothers adaptation of The 2020 Commission Report.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Graduate seminar did a deep dive on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense yesterday. At the line, “in America the law is king,” they (14 students from 6 countries) burst out laughing. I've been doing this for 35 years and this is the first time that was a laugh line.
October 22, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Graduate seminar did a deep dive on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense yesterday. At the line, “in America the law is king,” they (14 students from 6 countries) burst out laughing. I've been doing this for 35 years and this is the first time that was a laugh line.
Wow
October 22, 2025 at 1:47 AM
Wow
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
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:
October 11, 2025 at 2:10 AM
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:
I mean it was definitely unheard until they found it.
‘Almost unheard of’: experts find more music by English composer Henry Purcell
‘Almost unheard of’: experts find more music by English composer Henry Purcell
Printed score and keyboard manuscript by Purcell, who died in 1695, unearthed in Worcestershire and Norfolk
He was the leading English composer of the 17th century, writing masterpieces such as Dido and Aeneas and The Fairy Queen before his life was cut short in 1695, aged just 36.
Now two significant discoveries of music by Henry Purcell have been made, to the excitement of musicians. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
October 7, 2025 at 10:53 AM
I mean it was definitely unheard until they found it.
Very good thread here
In all the endless discussions of LLMs, there’s a point that is, on one level, obvious, but that I feel does not get sufficiently foregrounded: LLMs are transforming material that people have put up on the internet.
October 4, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Very good thread here
September 30. October 1.
October 1, 2025 at 1:52 PM
September 30. October 1.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
(Reuters) - More than 150,000 federal employees will leave the U.S. government payroll this week after accepting buyouts - the largest single-year exodus of civil servants in nearly 80 years ..
@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...
@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...
US government faces brain drain as 154,000 federal workers exit this week
More than 150,000 federal employees will leave the U.S. government payroll this week after accepting buyouts - the largest single-year exodus of civil servants in nearly 80 years, triggering what unions and governance experts warn is a damaging loss of institutional expertise.
www.reuters.com
October 1, 2025 at 11:39 AM
(Reuters) - More than 150,000 federal employees will leave the U.S. government payroll this week after accepting buyouts - the largest single-year exodus of civil servants in nearly 80 years ..
@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...
@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Study links greater inequality to structural changes in children’s brains
Study links greater inequality to structural changes in children’s brains
Researchers say findings show inequality creates toxic environment and reducing it is ‘a public health imperative’
Scientists have linked the impact of living in an unequal society to structural changes in the brains of children – regardless of individual wealth – for the first time.
The study of more than 10,000 young people in the US discovered altered brain development in children from wealthy and lower-income families in areas with higher rates of inequality, which were also associated with poorer mental health. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
September 30, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Study links greater inequality to structural changes in children’s brains
Anthropic experimented with letting an AI run a little shop. It lost money, then went insane. I wrote about how the case illustrates the need for research on how the social world will be transformed by the massive increase of interactions between people and LLMs, and, crucially, between AI agents.
Living in a Synthetic Society
We need a sociology of AI interaction to describe and understand our weird future
open.substack.com
September 29, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Anthropic experimented with letting an AI run a little shop. It lost money, then went insane. I wrote about how the case illustrates the need for research on how the social world will be transformed by the massive increase of interactions between people and LLMs, and, crucially, between AI agents.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
When a typo in your Google search leads to new and exciting philosophical positions
September 22, 2025 at 9:25 PM
When a typo in your Google search leads to new and exciting philosophical positions
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Good @postopinions.bsky.social by Donald McNeil Jr donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Opinion | Not vaccinating comes at an exorbitant cost
Agony and death are not all that shots prevent.
www.washingtonpost.com
September 14, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Good @postopinions.bsky.social by Donald McNeil Jr donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Sometimes we’re unsatisfied with a thing we made because when it only existed in our head, we saw all the things it could have been and when it’s done we know all the things that it isn’t, but we can’t see the way it expands into a million new things when someone else unpacks it in their head. 🖊️🦑
August 31, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Sometimes we’re unsatisfied with a thing we made because when it only existed in our head, we saw all the things it could have been and when it’s done we know all the things that it isn’t, but we can’t see the way it expands into a million new things when someone else unpacks it in their head. 🖊️🦑
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
New study by @brendannyhan.bsky.social, @jasonreifler.bsky.social & colleagues demonstrates that prebunking election fraud rumors — by warning about anticipated false claims & filling conceptual gaps that those claims exploit — helps to reduce belief in falsehoods: www.science.org/content/arti...
Trust in elections rises after ‘inoculations’ meant to preempt false fraud claims
New U.S.-Brazil study points to ways of countering election misinformation, political scientists say
www.science.org
August 29, 2025 at 7:40 PM
New study by @brendannyhan.bsky.social, @jasonreifler.bsky.social & colleagues demonstrates that prebunking election fraud rumors — by warning about anticipated false claims & filling conceptual gaps that those claims exploit — helps to reduce belief in falsehoods: www.science.org/content/arti...
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Very good article and thread about open alternatives to google scholar, which clearly will go away when its founder retires. The @barcelonadori.bsky.social movement is getting a lot if attention and OpenAlex.org a lot of support. The Lens currently looking for new home about.lens.org/expressions-...
August 14, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Very good article and thread about open alternatives to google scholar, which clearly will go away when its founder retires. The @barcelonadori.bsky.social movement is getting a lot if attention and OpenAlex.org a lot of support. The Lens currently looking for new home about.lens.org/expressions-...