Somehow the weirdest detail in that story is that he’s still being paid his salary

Thank you!

the Ian McEwan school of fetal personhood

Yeah, and a lot of strikes are motivated by local mismanagement or cruelty — but ultimately if a university is making massive redundancies, that might have been exacerbated by poor governance, but the solution is government £££. ATM it’s all local strikes, but systemic problems.

(I meant more that they don’t care about universities, as entities, rather than The NHS or even individual Hospitals or Primary Schools or whatever public sector unit might be striking: where the public feels like they’re on the side of the public sector workers and against the government.)

I think there’s a lot less of that now honestly — not because academics no longer care about students, but because their working conditions have been so eroded that actually there’s just no slack in the system to go above and beyond. Most of the time people are striking because they’re exhausted.

True, but arguably if we were able to be a bit more Millwall about it that wouldn’t matter… I guess the real public opinion problem is that we’re a workforce who sees ourselves as public sector but who are striking in atomised, not exactly public sector workplaces (that most people don’t care about)

yes, in practice, most people can access abortion if they want one. but that isn’t actually what the law says, and afaik Diana Johnson’s amendment decriminalising abortion in England and Wales doesn’t actually change this? it’s a farcical situation honestly.

abortion law in Scotland, and in England and Wales, is a huge mess: pregnant people don’t have the right to an abortion even under 24 weeks, they still require two (!) doctors to decide that it would cause more harm to have the baby. it’s still a privilege bestowed by medical professionals.

UCU is in a weird position with this: we’ve been on strike so much over the last few years and it’s coincided with a huge attack on both expertise in general and higher education in particular through a culture wars-y lens. And it’s made us quite cringing and anxious about public opinion I think.

Oh interesting — it bet on Musk to take penalties over Messi and Ronaldo but perhaps it doesn’t think he could do it on a wet Tuesday night in Stoke

Have you tried asking it who would have come up with the better Final Solution

Ah, but is that humility or, uh, a straightforward assessment of where Elon might have stood in that particular conflict

This is the first one I’ve seen where Elon hasn’t been declared the ultimate winner in every way. Imagining one pro-Olivier programmer going rogue and quietly putting a thumb on the scale

if introverts are people who supposedly dislike social contact why do they need everyone to be talking about them all the time

Ooooh?

“Women described another professor as more aggressive... He would dominate conversations with women over drinks and get angry at others present if he thought they were trying to contain his behavior, the people said. He would also invite women to his college rooms”. What a charmer.