Mark McCormack
@markmccormack.bsky.social
Sociologist. Professor. Deputy Dean Research. Author of 'Discovering Sociology' and 'The Declining Significance of Homophobia'. Posts are in a personal capacity. I volunteer with The Loop, read and play badminton.
https://linktr.ee/markmccormack
https://linktr.ee/markmccormack
Pinned
Mark McCormack
@markmccormack.bsky.social
· Jun 14
Poppers, the Politics of Exemption and the Characteristics of Poppers Users in the annual English Festival Study, 2014–23
Abstract. This paper explores the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics, self-reported alkyl nitrite (‘poppers’) use and sexual behaviours
academic.oup.com
Poppers, the Politics of Exemption and the Characteristics of Poppers Users in the annual English Festival Study, 2014–23: Now in an issue at BJC: academic.oup.com/bjc/article/...
Reposted by Mark McCormack
SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten.
"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA
"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA
November 10, 2025 at 6:40 PM
SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten.
"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA
"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Hundreds of thousands of people, dead because of a decision made by the world's richest man
One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
November 7, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Hundreds of thousands of people, dead because of a decision made by the world's richest man
Reposted by Mark McCormack
"Basic scientists consistently enhance scientific output quality, yet research and newly joining researchers have shifted toward applied orientations."
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2509.01530
#PhilSci #MetaSci #AcademicSky 🧪
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2509.01530
#PhilSci #MetaSci #AcademicSky 🧪
November 8, 2025 at 11:37 AM
"Basic scientists consistently enhance scientific output quality, yet research and newly joining researchers have shifted toward applied orientations."
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2509.01530
#PhilSci #MetaSci #AcademicSky 🧪
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2509.01530
#PhilSci #MetaSci #AcademicSky 🧪
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Age restrictions on social media for over 50s.
A friend told me that her American dad got in touch to talk about some news he'd seen on Facebook: there are riots in England over DEI, and the King dramatically burst into parliament to tell Starmer off, and then Prince William did the same to Sadiq Khan. AI really is inventing bold new universes
November 3, 2025 at 8:39 AM
Age restrictions on social media for over 50s.
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Matt Goodwin attributes a crime that he now knows appears to have been committed by people born in Britain in the early 1990s to "mass uncontrolled immigration"
November 2, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Matt Goodwin attributes a crime that he now knows appears to have been committed by people born in Britain in the early 1990s to "mass uncontrolled immigration"
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Government funding of basic research pays off.
Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term
www.gov.uk/government/p...
www.gov.uk/government/p...
The value of public R&D
www.gov.uk
October 30, 2025 at 10:40 PM
Government funding of basic research pays off.
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term
www.gov.uk/government/p...
www.gov.uk/government/p...
The value of public R&D
www.gov.uk
October 30, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term
www.gov.uk/government/p...
www.gov.uk/government/p...
Reposted by Mark McCormack
I suspect one byproduct of this "crackdown" will be that it will reveal that illegal working is significantly less of an issue than most people think...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
October 29, 2025 at 8:36 AM
I suspect one byproduct of this "crackdown" will be that it will reveal that illegal working is significantly less of an issue than most people think...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reposted by Mark McCormack
If we're living through a technological revolution, why is econonic growth so low? Why is productivity not increasing?
October 29, 2025 at 7:18 AM
If we're living through a technological revolution, why is econonic growth so low? Why is productivity not increasing?
Disgraceful framing.
Is the Reform MP who says she’s driven mad by TV adverts full of Black & Asian people a racist or realist? How many migrants would the Tories expel? & should the UK be selling fighter jets to Türkiye?
Join LIVE at 9PM on X & YouTube or on ITV1 at 1045PM 📺
#Peston
Join LIVE at 9PM on X & YouTube or on ITV1 at 1045PM 📺
#Peston
October 27, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Disgraceful framing.
"The legal term for my people were slaves"
October 25, 2025 at 9:58 PM
"The legal term for my people were slaves"
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Smart people keep saying…
“AI technologies severely impede humans’ ability to learn and retain skills… Rather than expanding our intellectual horizons, these technologies undermine the very conditions that allow us to think for ourselves.”
“AI technologies severely impede humans’ ability to learn and retain skills… Rather than expanding our intellectual horizons, these technologies undermine the very conditions that allow us to think for ourselves.”
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
October 25, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Smart people keep saying…
“AI technologies severely impede humans’ ability to learn and retain skills… Rather than expanding our intellectual horizons, these technologies undermine the very conditions that allow us to think for ourselves.”
“AI technologies severely impede humans’ ability to learn and retain skills… Rather than expanding our intellectual horizons, these technologies undermine the very conditions that allow us to think for ourselves.”
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Research should inform policy but that’s tricky if it is almost entirely driven by policy. The independence of research is key to change because if you fund only research that responds to policy (even good policy) you’re less innovative, creative & responsive to the open options of the future.
October 24, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Research should inform policy but that’s tricky if it is almost entirely driven by policy. The independence of research is key to change because if you fund only research that responds to policy (even good policy) you’re less innovative, creative & responsive to the open options of the future.
Reposted by Mark McCormack
“persisting with an inadequate fees-led model of higher education, in which universities are run as competing businesses funded by student consumers, is producing a dystopian academic landscape. A more stable system of public funding is urgently required.”
Indeed.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Indeed.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The Guardian view on campus discontent: listen to those on the frontline | Editorial
Editorial: The government’s funding plans, announced in this week’s white paper, won’t do much to alleviate a deepening crisis of morale among university staff
www.theguardian.com
October 22, 2025 at 6:05 PM
“persisting with an inadequate fees-led model of higher education, in which universities are run as competing businesses funded by student consumers, is producing a dystopian academic landscape. A more stable system of public funding is urgently required.”
Indeed.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Indeed.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Mark McCormack
You'd think there would be more interest from the US media that Trump is simply delusional - at best being fed complete fabrications by his team, at worst in serious cognitive decline and unable to recognise reality.
Trump: "I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows."
October 8, 2025 at 8:45 PM
You'd think there would be more interest from the US media that Trump is simply delusional - at best being fed complete fabrications by his team, at worst in serious cognitive decline and unable to recognise reality.
This is where I differ from a lot of academics. After I get to 5-6, my view is "if it's important, I'll remember it", and then close the browser.
I will never understand the 54%. Ever.
How many browsing tabs do you typically have open?*
1: 6%
2-5: 54%
6-10: 14%
11-20: 8%
21-30: 2%
More than 30: 3%
*across all windows, on desktop/laptop
yougov.co.uk/topics/techn...
1: 6%
2-5: 54%
6-10: 14%
11-20: 8%
21-30: 2%
More than 30: 3%
*across all windows, on desktop/laptop
yougov.co.uk/topics/techn...
October 8, 2025 at 6:52 PM
This is where I differ from a lot of academics. After I get to 5-6, my view is "if it's important, I'll remember it", and then close the browser.
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Something grimly predictable about the way that the conversation about 'ripoff degrees' in the UK is always about degrees that aren't rip-offs, but are instead fairly obvious 'this student has chosen something unlikely to pay off economically' rather than the short tail of crap business degrees:
Everyone needs educating in the fight over university degrees
Political confusion over the purpose of these institutions means the obvious fixes are being neglected
www.ft.com
October 8, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Something grimly predictable about the way that the conversation about 'ripoff degrees' in the UK is always about degrees that aren't rip-offs, but are instead fairly obvious 'this student has chosen something unlikely to pay off economically' rather than the short tail of crap business degrees:
Reposted by Mark McCormack
UK Tory Party Conference: Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch declares war on English degrees.
#literature #language #English #HigherEd #University
#literature #language #English #HigherEd #University
October 8, 2025 at 8:29 AM
UK Tory Party Conference: Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch declares war on English degrees.
#literature #language #English #HigherEd #University
#literature #language #English #HigherEd #University
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Am wondering if all of those suddenly deciding they’re against communities living “parallel lives” might reconsider their support of religious schools? Or indeed private ones?
October 7, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Am wondering if all of those suddenly deciding they’re against communities living “parallel lives” might reconsider their support of religious schools? Or indeed private ones?
Reposted by Mark McCormack
So to summarise, this is a white politician blaming a black journalist for the racism he is now actively helping to promote, after receiving the full endorsement of his own party leader
Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA
October 7, 2025 at 9:00 AM
So to summarise, this is a white politician blaming a black journalist for the racism he is now actively helping to promote, after receiving the full endorsement of his own party leader
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA
October 7, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA
It's what I've felt with the debates about authorship and AI. Rather suggests the presence of an author - and we don't credit computers in writing with high-level stats etc etc.
“The notion of AI personhood is a marketing exercise and a legal maneuver that I don’t think we should buy into,” says D&S researcher @cariatida.bsky.social. “Tilly is not an actress any more than, like, Sid the sloth from the ‘Ice Age’ movies is an actor.” www.huffpost.com/entry/ai-act...
Experts Warn This Real-World Effect Is The Most Unsettling Thing About 'AI Actor' Tilly
This Hollywood newcomer has a long list of haters already.
www.huffpost.com
October 6, 2025 at 4:08 PM
It's what I've felt with the debates about authorship and AI. Rather suggests the presence of an author - and we don't credit computers in writing with high-level stats etc etc.
Reposted by Mark McCormack
Hard agree - there are very vivid examples of why the disappearance of a functioning centre right option in a system which props up the two largest parties every single day, when the news reports on the Trump administration.
It's fascinating how there are still replies on this, and indeed on every post about the decline of the Tories, with people on the left and centre-left people going 'good'. Honestly, I don't know how big of a warning sign you need that the death of the Tory party is bad for your politics!
Removing her will be an act of mercy at this point. It's getting unbearable to watch her flail around.
October 5, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Hard agree - there are very vivid examples of why the disappearance of a functioning centre right option in a system which props up the two largest parties every single day, when the news reports on the Trump administration.
Reposted by Mark McCormack
This is why they want all human rights restraints removed. #ECHR
October 4, 2025 at 8:35 PM
This is why they want all human rights restraints removed. #ECHR