Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 2h

Tired: "Two-state solution"

Wired: "One-state solution"

Inspired: "Zero-state solution"

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3h

Of course, people like Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage are now saying it very much out loud. Meanwhile the Trump regime has gone full accelerationist on the issue

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3h

One line from this Simon Kuper column last year has been living rent-free in my head ever since: "The biggest unspoken political decision of our time — which predates Trump — is that we won’t take significant action against climate change." www.ft.com/content/b713...

Lamentations of a lost liberal

Liberals have learnt pessimism since 2016. This time, we are neither baffled nor energised by Trump’s win

www.ft.com

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Jessica Ritchey @jmritchey.bsky.social · 18h

Oh come on, it's not like Disney would have anyone on hand who could paint and design old school lunch box logos, they're just a mom n' pop outfit operating out of a storefront on a dream and a lot of gumption. Do better.

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3h

"OK everyone, here's the agreed signing copy, now remember: you have to *say* everything printed in black and *do* everything printed in red"

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3h

Had an email from a French lawyer I've been negotiating a contract with, who told me "The DocuSign ceremony will be launched next Monday" – an unimprovable term for the process which I intend to adopt forthwith

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3h

"We are passionate about sitting in silence" - yep, tracks 😁

A group of Quakers sitting in a circle holding a meeting for worship at a protest, surrounded by banners reading "Quakers for Peace", "Quaker Palestine Solidarity", and so on

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Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 4h

Yes (and if you’re looking for a thread that connects protests in the form of frog costumes, naked bike rides, and processions of the Blessed Sacrament, that’s probably it).

Andrew Blum @ablum.bsky.social · 12h

We had Angela Davis speak at my university a couple of years back. One of the many insightful things she said - protest in the way that aligns with your passion. If that’s poetry do poetry or music etc. Because then you will be able to sustain it. If naked bike rides are your passion, 100% do that.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12h

Someone in my mentions is upset because these people haven’t suffered the worst at ICE’s hands and therefore they shouldn’t be praised for being out on the streets?

Yeah, no. To push back on these people we need everyone — especially those with relative privilege — to get up and get involved.

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Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 4h

Some of these are real jobs (though possibly sometimes the respondent has been trying to make them posher?) Others make you suspect the respondent may have been taking the mickey, which is always a risk when polling the British public…

waltydunlop @waltydunlop.bsky.social · 1d

Job occupations, from an 1881 census. Every one of these sounds like something a sorely provoked Captain Haddock would should at someone in times of heavy stress.

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Danielle Froom 🏳️‍🌈 @danifroom.bsky.social · 4h

Bastion from X-Men 97, explaining why most people will happily go along with persecution and genocide: "Because when your skin's not in the game, apathy's your answer."

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🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 3d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

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Sage Divinorum 🏳️‍⚧️ @trans.bsky.social · Oct 9

Conservatives & Centrists: "i hate these illegal immigrants, all they bring is violence & disease. it’s an invasion.”

Christopher Columbus in hell:

Christopher Columbus as a horrifying flesh muppet, side-eyeing & glancing at the viewer. Flames and the boats of colonizers landing is in the background.

Christopher Columbus as a horrifying flesh muppet, staring straight ahead without looking at the viewer. Flames and the boats of colonizers landing is in the background.

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Malcolm Wilson (they/them) @malcolmwilson01.bsky.social · 6h

Can I also say that driving at 20mph allows you to notice the world around you? It makes journeys more interesting.

Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · Aug 21

Remember, whenever you hear that “speed wasn’t a factor” in a deadly crash, what they mean is that the car involved wasn’t technically speeding. At least “not by much.” It presumes that the speed limit wasn’t too high to begin with.

When it comes to death from collisions, SPEED IS ALWAYS a factor.

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 22h

“You won’t lose your date to an AI, you’ll lose your date to a guy who uses AI”. Or perhaps not.

C. Buckthorn @cbuckthorn.bsky.social · 1d

This is amazing. I laughed out loud www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

As 32-year-old Rich points out, though, "it's not like using ChatGPT guarantees success".
When he met someone in a bar one Friday night and swapped social media handles, he asked AI what his next move should be.
ChatGPT discerned that sending an initial message on Monday midmorning would set the right pace. "Then it gave me some options for what the message could be," says Rich.
"Keep it light, warm, and low-stakes so it reads as genuine interest without urgency," the bot advised. "Something like: Hey Sarah, still laughing about [tiny shared moment/reference if you've got one] - good to meet you!" Rich went back and forth with ChatGPT until he felt they'd hit upon exactly the right message ("Hey Sarah, it was lovely to meet you") but sadly she never replied, he says. "It's been two weeks now."

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

I set my old blogs to "private" some years ago out of sheer mortification, but I just came across this from a 2009 post I'm not completely ashamed of. It's discussing Christopher Hill's book, The World Turned Upside Down, where Hill discusses the eclipse of Calvinism in England after the Civil War:

Hence Hill’s observation on how the social effects of Puritanism outlived the popularity of Calvinism itself:

"It was as though it had performed its historic task with the establishment of a society in which the protestant ethic prevailed."

Hill draws an interesting parallel between the Reformation’s proclamation of justification by faith and the French Revolution’s secular proclamation of human rights:

"Middle-class revolutionaries proclaimed the Rights of Man, and seem to have been genuinely taken aback when the Fourth Estate claimed that they too were men."

Hill’s argument is that this led in both cases to a need to find ways to re-establish social order in the face of the democratising, even chaotic, forces of spiritual or human equality. As he puts it:

"The 'bourgeois' doctrine of equality always has the suppressed premise that some are more equal than others."

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Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 2d

Of course, it’s not irrelevant that Lewis wrote LWWW in the aftermath of WWII, and sets it at its beginning (probably), so it’s not entirely surprising that the Witch’s reign of terror has some fascistic touches, but I hadn’t realised how much Ed sounds like someone going fash out of resentment.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 2d

Ok, did not expect “The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe” to feel quite so relevant to this moment.

Here’s Edmund, deciding to side with the leader who he’s been told disappears people.

He did want Turkish Delight and to be a prince (and later a king) and to pay Peter out for calling him a beast. As for what the Witch would do with the others, he didn't want her to be particularly nice to them - certainly not to put them on the same level as himself; but he managed to believe, or to pretend he believed, that she wouldn't do anything very bad to them, 'Because,' he said to himself, 'all these people who say nasty things about her are her enemies and probably half of it isn't true. She was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than they are. I expect she is the rightful Queen really. Anyway, she'll be better than that awful Aslan!' At least, that was the excuse he made in his own mind for what he was doing. It wasn't a very good excuse, however, for deep down inside him he really knew that the White Witch was bad and cruel.

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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 2d

I like how the news will be like “while the President claiming Portland was ruled by a giant skeleton named Mr Nibbles is not strictly true, it does speak to the anxiety of many Americans”

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 2d

I assume Macron’s thinking here is “Well, Lecornu didn’t work out *last* weekend, but now that my authority is even more shot to shreds than it was then, I’ve got a good feeling about *this* weekend” www.bbc.com/news/article...

Macron reappoints Lecornu as French PM after days of turmoil

Sébastien Lecornu resigned on Monday after 26 days in the job and he said two days later his "mission is over".

www.bbc.com

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3d

As I’ve said before: it’s a digital poll tax with the proceeds going to mobile phone companies and Amazon

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3d

“Oh but they’re going to look into how it will work for people without smartphones” yep and then they’re going to realise how expensive and difficult that would be and ministers will start pointing out that “you can buy a smartphone on Amazon for £30”

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3d

So… smartphones for teenagers are going to be *banned* in schools, but *mandatory* everywhere else. Got it. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Government to consult on digital IDs for 13-year-olds

There has been a backlash to the announcement a UK-wide digital ID scheme will be introduced by 2029.

www.bbc.com

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The Bear @bearlypolitics.co.uk · 5d

So, the plan is to cut English, the arts, and sociology - the degrees that actually study culture - while on another part of your platform claiming to “defend” British culture.

It’s performance nationalism with a reading age of seven.

Badenoch: Curb students taking 'rip-off' degrees such as English
The performing arts, sociology and anthropology are among the subjects the Conservatives would like to cut

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3d

Basil Fawlty saying “We are all friends now, eh?”

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3d

Intriguing! I haven’t watched Question Time for at least 15 years: the psychic damage had become too much for me even then. How did it manage to be better this time??

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 3d

Deleted my post about the Internet Archive not working. Looks like it may be related to either my ISP or my work laptop