Frank de Bakker

AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.

"Critical pedagogy is out; productivity hacks are in. What’s sold as innovation is really surrender. [...] The future of education has already arrived, as a liquidation sale of everything that once made it matter."

#HigherEd

www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

‘The Chinese will not pause’: Volvo and Polestar bosses urge EU to stick to 2035 petrol car ban Exclusive: Swedish carmakers push to retain target as Germany lobbies to help its own industry by softening cutoff date

‘The Chinese will not pause’: Volvo and Polestar bosses urge EU to stick to 2035 petrol car ban

Sounds good - do you use it?

US tells EU to 'roll back' digital rules against US tech companies | Euractiv US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick dangled the "carrot" of US giants investing in EU data centres in exchange for "reasonable" laws – and the "stick" of tariffs

Thanks, but no thanks. We don't want Amazon, Microsoft and Google to invest a trillion dollars in datacenters in Europe that will bring data of EU citizens within reach of Trump and will lock-in our digital dependence for decades to come.

We need to start building our own digital infrastructure.

🚨BREAKING | 1,600+ fossil fuel lobbyists given access to #COP30 in Brazil

EU governments alone brought 84 fossil fuel lobbyists, including representatives from TotalEnergies and Engie

Climate policies can't be effective if they are shaped by the industry that is most responsible for climate change

Veel rust in de portemonnee dus.

Environment ministers botch EU climate targets - Greenpeace European Unit Brussels – After a night of haggling, the EU’s national environment ministers have proposed a climate target for 2040 that falls significantly short of even the minimum that the EU’s…

The EU's environment ministers have agreed a proposed climate target for 2040 that is much lower than what even the EU's own science advisers called for

Half-assing climate action will lead to more deaths, more lost homes, more lost harvests – and the EU will struggle play leader at #COP30

#EU2040

Lieve media, Wilders kan Playbook Trump alleen uitrollen als jullie, als wij journalisten, verslag doen van giftig nepnieuws als waren het feiten. Als er geen enkel bewijs is voor fraude, zijn dit soort berichten nagels aan de doodskist van de democratie

When activists reach out to us, they're often stuck in a frustrating situation: corporate harm is clear, but the link to those responsible is hard to prove 🤯

SOMO's free helpdesk, The Counter, helps find that missing link🔍

Need help exposing corporate harm?
Get in touch ➡️ www.somo.nl/the-counter/

NSC staat op 1 !

The fossil fuel industry’s playbook: Deny. Delay. Dilute.

Chapter 2 of “Climate Obstruction” shows how Big Oil reinvented obstruction for the net-zero era.

Read: cssn.org/news-researc...

Trump administration finalizes plan to open pristine Alaska wildlife refuge to oil and gas drilling The Trump administration has finalized a plan to open the coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, renewing long-simmering debate over whether to drill in one...

Imagine selling off iconic landscapes like the Grand Canyon or Yosemite’s Half Dome to the highest bidder. Pretty crazy, right? That’s what’s happening in the Arctic.

Last week, the Trump regime finalized its plan to sell off 16 million acres of public lands in the Arctic to oil and gas. 💔

Van der Plas boos op NOS: 'Ik word hier gewoon midden in een inhoudelijke discussie geplaatst'

#hetdebat #slotdebat #verkiezingen

Bonfire of expertise: Trump drives scientists, spies and soldiers out of government Trump believes the "Deep State," scientific establishment and federal bureaucracy were overdue for a purge.

"3,000 CDC staffers have left since January, with thousands more gone from the FDA and NIH. The expertise drain also hits cyber defense, nuclear safety, weather forecasting and disaster response."😱 Enabled by a complicit GOP Congress that will live in infamy. www.axios.com/2025/08/30/t...

Law Firm Pressures Brown University to Erase Research on Anti-Wind Groups

My lab's been attacked by an anti-wind group and their lawyers. They threatened the science funding of my whole university, to shut me and my undergraduate research assistants up.

NYT just covered it. 1/n

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...

That was fun to finally meet @brandaid-world.bsky.social in person in Copenhagen and discuss #realpuppetregime

Indeed Maja, the ease with which companies retreat suggests that for many, DEI was never a principle—just a PR strategy.

When employees matter: How employee resource groups and workforce liberalism jointly spur firms to support Pro-LGBTQ legislation Employees are increasingly vocal about and attentive toward their organizations’ social policies and practices. Scholars have identified two main chan…

If this continues, our recent paper (w/ Niels Selling) in the Journal of Business Research will soon turn out to be a history paper.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

DOD ending social sci. research funding--stopping 91 studies related to threats like climate change, extremism, & disinfo.

"[DOD] does not do climate change crap,' Def. Sec. Hegseth wrote on X...'We do training & war fighting.'”

For yrs, DoD acknowledged env. change threatens military capabilities

U.S. rejects 2030 UN goals on ending poverty, tackling climate change - National | Globalnews.ca The U.S. renunciation was one of the first — if not the first — by any country of the 17 goals that were adopted unanimously by all 193 U.N. member nations.

Denying the existence of a problem does not make it disappear.

globalnews.ca/news/1107221...

Next time you publish something you feel is worthy of telling the world about, consider these steps for social-media-facilitated dissemination and attention assessment.

Via publisher: doi.org/10.1016/j.bu...

Open access preprint: ssrn.com/abstract=410...

"Bridging internal and external stakeholder expectations together: The new role of “issue brokers” in corporate social responsibility" - blog on our new paper in SO w/ Michiel de Roo, Christopher Wickert and Tom Elfring - www.vumanagementperspectives.com/2025/02/03/b...

A Dear Colleague letter in defense of DEI, by Shaun Harper Shaun Harper identifies 11 specific actions higher ed institutions can take to uphold their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

"The dept’s letter will compel many of you to hide, rename or altogether discontinue DEI initiatives. I insist on doing the opposite. Now is the time to showcase DEI activities." I'd missed this by Shaun Harper and damn it's good. Such good guidance in here.

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/blog...

Sad and shortsighted but happening everywhere: "The Dutch government will henceforth take a Netherlands-first approach with development aid" or "France Strives To Reevaluate Development Aid Effectiveness Amid Budget Cuts"

Important editorial, also for other fields such as management and organization studies

Glaciers provide stable melting water to a very large % of all farms in the entire world.

When (not if) we lose this stable, slow, dependable glacier melt water, our food system will collapse.

Graph with monthly world temperature anomalies compared to the 1991-2020 average, since 1891, plus a 10 year moving average. This has gone from -0.8 beginning of 1900 to +0.36 now.

Monthly global climate data update from JMA for the month of January 2025.
Hottest month of January since 1891.
datagraver.com/climate-data...
#climate

The Path to American Authoritarianism What comes after democratic breakdown.

This is the one article to read on contemporary (and future) U.S. politics. Laid out analytically and clearly. There is a hint of optimism (which I do not share but do appreciate).