vpcampbell.bsky.social

Having just done a big follow of loads of starter packs, just a quick intro to me: I post about political communication and journalism (UK mostly), often for teaching, sometimes about space/science documentary, and a lot recently about how awful gen AI is.

Blair's government created the emergencies behind its 'Preparing for Emergencies' leaflet in 2004. Johnson's government binned pandemic planning, then lied and ignored their own rules during Covid. But sure, let's treat the latest government's advice without any cynicism. Duck and cover everyone.

I mean how hard is it to describe your kid? Mine likes Space, singing, and spending weekends trying to summon the Great Old Ones. See, easy.

'Then you read what the ratings do. A university rated “Requires improvement” has to cut its intake by ten per cent, then by another ten per cent the following year'.

Also, in the context of a very recent government binning pandemic planning before COVID, then lying about what they were doing, and ignoring the rules the majority of the rest of us dutifully followed, maybe a bit of cynicism is entirely reasonable?

A lot of aggressive condescension from people who maybe if they'd been like that over our government doing sweet fuck all about, say, flood defences, or reservoirs, for fucking decades, they would have a point.

If it turns out all "the Russians are coming!" warnings are just some clever marketing for the next James Bond movie...

I don't care, in the sense that, yet again, they miss the point completely. The data done by AI, the paper written by AI, the review done by AI, the reading done by AI. Each step emptied of voice, of identity, of purpose, of humanity. The cult of the Torment Nexus steamrollers on.

Taxpayers delighted that the government has given hundreds of millions to the Torment Nexus thieves to protect us from the Torment Nexus thieves.

It's the intellectual and creative equivalent of the monorail, made out of radium, and running on pure lead fumes. The government has absolutely drunk all the Kool aid on AI.

Wow. Always questions about their dominance of imagery (some great studies out there on that) but the speed with which the slopocalypse has brought them down is still something.

Right, got my doomsday prep all done. Oh wait, shit, I forgot to pack my pre-industrial age greenhouse gas level atmosphere. I've got my braille Bible though.

Alright, fine, I'll get a new wind up radio (the old one is either lost in the back of the garage, broken or both) but this is When the Wind Blows territory.

Yes, or this

That government advice again, if you missed it. youtu.be/Lg9scNl9h4Q?...

Free Speech Tsar says "You can't say that!"

It's a great relief that none of the 30,000 or so academics who've lost their jobs in the last three years had mortgages, otherwise there might have been some kind of outcry.

For the sake of all fuck.

Like something from 'Crazy People'.

As Margarine Thatcher releases yet another book attempting to persuade us that HER delusions should also be OUR decisions, let me just remind you of how remarkably, hilariously, terrifyingly bad she was. No paywall. 725 jokes. (Kwasi did the maths) russincheshire.substack.com/p/it-would-a...

Like George Galloway and Saddam Hussein all those years ago.

Interesting piece.

Exactly. I don't get these people very openly saying "Hey! I'm an academic! But I can't write! Nope, not a thing! I know- I don't get why anyone's paying me either."

What do we do when they get caught red-handed and just refuse to go away? Because that's what they are doing, over, and over, and over again.

Like that Microsoft guy said- the largest theft in history, and it's going on in plain sight, with loads of people who should know better smiling along as they hand over everything to people who care nothing for anyone.

Who would ever have imagined that Julie Burchill was a total fucking idiot …

I'm not surprised that people whose careers are all about "Hey look at me! Listen to ME!" are all agonised about claimed declines in socialising. The rest of us are perpetually drowning in people and their nonsense, everywhere, all the fucking time.

Sentient. Yeah, mate, I'm getting less convinced by the minute that you're sentient, never mind your KKKITT.

#MS2001 A beautiful illustration of the inequities of access in political communication. Apart from being famous, from being in a band, this chap's billionaire dad owns GB News. You can't get on TV current affairs if you're not "properly" connected.

Lees than half a Mooch! That's almost as quick as a Tesla Roadster will crash!

#MS2001 how not to speak to the press as a whiny little politician.

LONDON!!!! My show is at Leicester Square Theatre NEXT WEEK!!!! ONE NIGHT ONLY! Tickets: www.leicestersquaretheatre.com/show/rosie-h...

I don't understand how people do this, never mind openly admit to it. You're saying you either don't want to, or can't do the job you're being paid for. I'm sure there's a long line of precarious workers who would do that job properly instead.

OK, there is something very, very weird going on in the press right now. It certainly appears, from the outside, as if certain people are being very much protected in a way that was not afforded to certain other people! Let's start with the facts around Lola Salem... 🧵1/

Disappointed to see some places apparently allowing AI in feedback. To me that's a basic professional competence. If that's beyond some people, there are thousands on casualised contracts, and thousands more who've been forced out through VSS, who would actually do the job instead.

Yank blue tick Yanks on here, blithely sharing his posts of real people getting killed by animals- one incident happened this weekend. So starved of violent images from your current war perhaps? Maybe the livestream execution will have a bigger audience than you'd all admit.

I think it's absolutely fantastic. It shows what an extraordinary country I live in and that refugees can fully integrate and participate in society

#MS2001 how not to be a White House Press Spokesperson.

NEW | On disappearing stories… MICHAEL GOVE, LOLA SALEM, AND A SUDDEN SILENCE Why did a series of newspaper stories vanish and why are right-wing organisations involved in a coordinated campaign to forget about one particular contributor? brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/michael-go...

Not a serious person.

Oh they can fuck off, and keep fucking off till they get back to where they started. And then fuck off all over again.

Never having heard of the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature is a bit less of a boast than not having heard of Strictly contestants. Do I get any points for knowing who Delta Goodrum is- including before her Eurovision appearance?

I realise these AI bastards have been stealing everyone's photos for years already but now we know they do it why anyone would voluntarily upload a photo to an AI is beyond me.

Harvard just dropped a study AI productivity in software engineering and it found the average increase in productivity from using Claude code is.....zero and for exactly the reasons you'd think fion.ac/jellyfish.pdf

I mean... He's off his rocker, isn't he? I was going to say, will he soon start wearing turquoise suits like David Icke but then I remembered the Reform light blue isn't far off that already.