Ryan Hagen
@alltheshapes.bsky.social
Sociologist studying risk, disaster, and social change
http://ryan-hagen.com
http://ryan-hagen.com
September 30. October 1.
October 1, 2025 at 1:52 PM
September 30. October 1.
Incredible AI interaction: I asked ChatGPT if there was any research on dealing with the problem of participants using LLMs to generate synthetic responses to qualitative studies (diary studies, free-text boxes in surveys). It responded by making up a fake paper about AI as “imposter participants.”
July 22, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Incredible AI interaction: I asked ChatGPT if there was any research on dealing with the problem of participants using LLMs to generate synthetic responses to qualitative studies (diary studies, free-text boxes in surveys). It responded by making up a fake paper about AI as “imposter participants.”
Also in the red deck
July 19, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Also in the red deck
Choose your dissertation advisor
May 3, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Choose your dissertation advisor
Always thought this split-second scene from The Conversation, where two women are putting on makeup in the mirrored glass of what they don’t realize is a surveillance van while one guy takes their photos in an exploitative way is a perfect metaphor for Facebook/Meta.
February 27, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Always thought this split-second scene from The Conversation, where two women are putting on makeup in the mirrored glass of what they don’t realize is a surveillance van while one guy takes their photos in an exploitative way is a perfect metaphor for Facebook/Meta.
One Jimmy Carter factoid I love is that his campaign plane was called Peanut One
December 29, 2024 at 9:29 PM
One Jimmy Carter factoid I love is that his campaign plane was called Peanut One
Recommendation letter season again, drawing on my notes
![An excerpt from The Hobbit, slightly altered to read: "Let's have no more argument. I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a [Sociologist], a [Sociologist] he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself. You may (possibly) all live to thank me yet.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ntwpaesc2lv3iwdmxfnou5pd/bafkreiclt65xjyzbbt35hiwt6cqvaawaao25bom4csh7ildzthcf5mczpq@jpeg)
December 2, 2024 at 9:49 PM
Recommendation letter season again, drawing on my notes
Once again thinking about this joke Atlantic cover from GHOSTBUSTERS asking whether or not ghosts have civil rights.
October 13, 2024 at 4:08 PM
Once again thinking about this joke Atlantic cover from GHOSTBUSTERS asking whether or not ghosts have civil rights.
Assistant professor Gandalf; Gandalf the Full; Gandalf, Emeritus
September 23, 2024 at 12:18 PM
Assistant professor Gandalf; Gandalf the Full; Gandalf, Emeritus
Celebrated independence day last year by jumping off of the bad site and coming here
September 17, 2024 at 10:16 AM
Celebrated independence day last year by jumping off of the bad site and coming here
Just remembered the perfect academic article, this one-pager on an unsuccessful treatment for writer’s block. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...
August 16, 2024 at 12:51 AM
Just remembered the perfect academic article, this one-pager on an unsuccessful treatment for writer’s block. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...
When university trustees and administrators finally decide faculty are more trouble than they’re worth and the institution would be better without them they just call up
May 24, 2024 at 1:17 PM
When university trustees and administrators finally decide faculty are more trouble than they’re worth and the institution would be better without them they just call up
How your email finds me
December 6, 2023 at 12:08 PM
How your email finds me
Turns out WARGAMES (1983) holds up extremely well, for example when this Bruno Latour-looking character shows up and tells NORAD its AI is hallucinating a Soviet first strike and they need to call off WWIII.
November 25, 2023 at 1:14 AM
Turns out WARGAMES (1983) holds up extremely well, for example when this Bruno Latour-looking character shows up and tells NORAD its AI is hallucinating a Soviet first strike and they need to call off WWIII.
Karl, you’ve had *another* Brumaire?
November 11, 2023 at 7:58 PM
Karl, you’ve had *another* Brumaire?
Scavengers Reign is one of the most incredible shows I’ve seen in years, truly an achievement.
November 10, 2023 at 12:52 AM
Scavengers Reign is one of the most incredible shows I’ve seen in years, truly an achievement.
Seeing this kind of signage for the first time and it’s fascinating — the ongoing routinization and standardization of encounters with risk through institutional measurement. Fire conditions, sea conditions, virus conditions, etc.
October 14, 2023 at 2:40 PM
Seeing this kind of signage for the first time and it’s fascinating — the ongoing routinization and standardization of encounters with risk through institutional measurement. Fire conditions, sea conditions, virus conditions, etc.
Somewhat surprised that only 42% of Americans in this Gallup poll say their lives have gotten completely back to normal since the pandemic started. They’re not masking, they’re not *really* all that worried about the virus, there’s just a sense that things are different now.
October 8, 2023 at 10:39 AM
Somewhat surprised that only 42% of Americans in this Gallup poll say their lives have gotten completely back to normal since the pandemic started. They’re not masking, they’re not *really* all that worried about the virus, there’s just a sense that things are different now.
Thinking about how at some point degrowth will go from a position in the policy debate to become simply a reality.
September 23, 2023 at 9:30 AM
Thinking about how at some point degrowth will go from a position in the policy debate to become simply a reality.
I suggested this as a sick joke to my graduate methods seminar last year: what if instead of doing the work of ethnographically knowing your interviewees building rapport you just got ChatGPT to conduct all your interviews for you? The economists actually went and did it.
September 16, 2023 at 8:35 PM
I suggested this as a sick joke to my graduate methods seminar last year: what if instead of doing the work of ethnographically knowing your interviewees building rapport you just got ChatGPT to conduct all your interviews for you? The economists actually went and did it.
Anderson Cooper gazing blankly over the Communist Party Congress as a visibly distressed Xi Jinping is led from the hall, an interruption in an otherwise highly scripted event clearly intended to send a message
September 3, 2023 at 12:18 PM
Anderson Cooper gazing blankly over the Communist Party Congress as a visibly distressed Xi Jinping is led from the hall, an interruption in an otherwise highly scripted event clearly intended to send a message