John BH
@johnbriggsh.bsky.social
390 followers 590 following 1.8K posts
Learning to listen. Trying to be better. Trying to escape my western perspective. And thank you in advance for posting an academic paper that is open access.
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johnbriggsh.bsky.social
“The invariable variability of human embodiment underwrites all human values, including that of life worthy of life.” - Joel Michael Reynolds, The Life Worth Living
Reposted by John BH
Reposted by John BH
drpauldorfman.bsky.social
“I used to think cancellation was for culture wars and comedians, not economists. But point out that North Sea oil doesn’t cut UK energy bills, and suddenly you’re censored”. Bennett Professor of Sustainable Finance University of Sussex.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Academic axed from Labour conference panel for criticising energy policy
Sustainability expert was told panellists discussing North Sea oil and gas were meant to ‘agree entirely’ with each other
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by John BH
emilydische.bsky.social
The fact that Hamas can't accurately identify or readily locate the remaining dead hostages certainly implies that they were incinerated and crushed in Israel's bombing, which rendered – by most estimates – many thousand bodies unidentifiable under the rubble.
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
“Because of… “ , not “Despite”.
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
'Despite AI’s widespread use, 62% of the students said it has had a negative impact on their skills and development at school, while one in four of the students agreed that AI “makes it too easy for me to find the answers without doing the work myself”.' 1/2
Pupils fear AI is eroding their ability to study, research finds
One in four students say AI ‘makes it too easy’ for them to find answers
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by John BH
audedarnal.bsky.social
"The only response to unilateralism is collective action."-Varsha Gandikota from @progintl.bsky.social at the Kuala Lumpur Conference on a New Just & Humane Intl Order. Collective action and intl solidarity must be the priority for the Global Majority to achieve the transformation of the intl order.
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
The UK government is currently “reforming” planning regulations. Real reform would include requirements to all new builds that they be energy efficient and prepared for 2C impact.

Not going to happen.

Also: preparing for 2C is an admission that BAU remains the priority over cutting emissions.
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
The inside story of how the BBC killed an important and timely documentary film into Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q...
The Film the BBC Wouldn’t Air
Podcast Episode · Question Everything · 02/10/2025 · 45m
podcasts.apple.com
Reposted by John BH
pollypw.bsky.social
It’s actually quite a common Zionist idea that the Palestinians just didn’t resist enough, were not supremacist enough, were too naïve etc and so it’s all their fault Israel just had to colonise and murder them.
michaelhobbes.bsky.social
"Sapiens" is so normal for the first 70,000 years of human history but then goes absolutely buckwild as soon as it gets to colonialism
Had the Aztecs and Incas shown a bit more interest in the world surrounding them - and had they known what the Spaniards had done to their neighbours - they might have resisted the Spanish conquest more keenly and successfully.
Reposted by John BH
avdeggar.bsky.social
The biggest takeaway from this graph is that six of the seven most unpopular prime ministers since records began are *the last six prime ministers we've had*

Does this look like the politics of a functional democracy?
Six of the seven most unpopular prime ministers since records began are *the last six prime ministers we have had*
Reposted by John BH
ayoub.bsky.social
To be clear: the decision to deny most people in the UK the covid vaccine is related to money, *not* based on a public health concern. In other words, Labour did not allocate enough money for covid vaccines so their "cost-effectiveness" end up the determining factor. www.gov.uk/government/p...
For the development of advice relating to COVID-19 vaccination from autumn 2025, JCVI has resumed the use of a standard cost-effectiveness assessment, in line with other routine vaccinations in the national immunisation programme and the JCVI code of practice. The advice is based on modelling of the impact and cost-effectiveness of vaccination where clinical outcomes are stratified by age, high-risk clinical disease groups and patients with immunosuppression. The use of cost-effectiveness is a key pillar in the consideration of immunisation programmes, ensuring that the substantial investments in the programmes are a good use of public money, and that those funds would not be better spent on other healthcare interventions. This has led to a more refined approach to the targeting of the COVID-19 immunisation programme, with a focus on individuals where there is good evidence of a high risk of hospitalisation and/or mortality.
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
From Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, “The Jewellers of the Ummah - A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World”

Azoulay writes of the response to acts of “imperialism, the belief that a state has the right to sacrifice other groups”
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
“three indispensable principles: the cessation of crimes, acknowledgment of the violence, and reparations for their victims as defined by the victims. Together, these principles could transform the premises of the law. Without them, we are stuck in the world organized by imperialism.”
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
“three indispensable principles: the cessation of crimes, acknowledgment of the violence, and reparations for their victims as defined by the victims. Together, these principles could transform the premises of the law. Without them, we are stuck in the world organized by imperialism.”
Reposted by John BH
emanabdelhadi.bsky.social
If you don’t see the link between ICE and the IDF, you haven’t been paying attention. We are being asked to accept a world where whole communities are made disposable and marked for disappearance. If we accept that for anyone, no one is safe anywhere.
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
About Blair ID “Brit”cards Starmer wants to impose on us.
swin24.bsky.social
The agents who constantly ask you for your papers means you live in a healthy democracy, disagree with this premise and you’ll be classified as doing material support for terrorism and lose all your funding, thx
royalpratt.bsky.social
NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...
Reposted by John BH
libyaliberty.bsky.social
Nothing says we aren’t a colonial project like “We are here to stay.”
yasharali.bsky.social
Yair Lapid in the Knesset as President Trump looks on:

“We are not going anywhere, the Middle East is our home. We are here to stay, our story did not end in the Bible, it began there.”
Reposted by John BH
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
The public deficit is the gap between two flows: spending and taxation. Thus: increasing spending and cutting taxes both increase the deficit.

But: the effects are very different. Very, very, different.

Brilliant history of how we got - were driven - here.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...
Counterrevolution w/ Melinda Cooper
Podcast Episode · The Dig · 30/09/2025 · 1h 54m
podcasts.apple.com
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
The call from UK government that Hamas must disarm is, of course, disingenuous. Hamas has no F35s. It has no air force. It has no tanks. Its armaments are repurposed / unexploded Israeli ordnance.

Israel by contrast is a massively armed nuclear state with unlimited (US, German, UK ) armaments.
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
How has Schuringa’s Social History been received?

“analytic philosophy, like its cousins behaviourism and neoclassical economics, serves to perpetuate a picture that is central to bourgeois liberal ideology – that of an inert realm of ‘fact’, simply given to the subject to be passively received”
Reposted by John BH
aidanosullivan.bsky.social
It’s an odd idea that “toppling statues” is “denying history”

Archaeologists will tell you people have always added to, removed, slighted monuments (eg medieval grave slabs with faces knocked off in the Reformation)

Toppling statues IS history in action.

observer.co.uk/culture/inte...
Nicholas Cullinan: ‘I don’t think it’s ever a good idea t...
The British Museum director on toppling statues, the Parthenon marbles and hosting London’s new star-studded answer to the Met Gala
observer.co.uk
johnbriggsh.bsky.social
UK government ministers - Starmer, Kyle, Mahmood,… - should stop inflating this bubble with their AI hype.
histoftech.bsky.social
“Concerns over an AI bubble bursting have grown lately, with analysts recently finding that it’s 17 times the size of the dotcom-era bubble and four times bigger than the 2008 financial crisis.”

Hang onto your butts. This “correction” is gonna hurt.
futurism.com/artificial-i...
Bank of England Warns of Impending AI Disaster
The Bank of England has sounded the alarm, warning of an intensifying risk of a "sudden correction" due to an AI spending frenzy.
futurism.com