Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ian Betteridge

@ianbetteridge.com

8.5K followers 2.3K following 6.4K posts

He of the eponymous law. FRSA. Good at writing and sums. Degrowther, and not a fan of capitalism. Your pal. The Eye of Sauron, but for headlines. Made by socialism and immigration, which seems to annoy people. Come for the headlines, stay for the Gramsci.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · Dec 15

Pinning this one to my profile for the hard for reading.

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · Dec 15

People have a right to speak. They don’t have a right for anyone else to have to listen. That’s why block lists etc exist. I don’t give people the benefit of assuming good faith in the same way I wouldn’t if someone followed me down the street demanding I debate them. I’d call the cops, to be honest

4 13 140

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

Matt Owen @mjowen174.bsky.social · 23h

If you could please do us a favour and RT (or whatever it is on here) my writing CV I would be extremely grateful. I am a very capable writer of words, mainly “humorous”’ and if you have some PROPER paid work for me, please DM me. Thank you for your time www.mathew-owen.co.uk

Home | Matt Owen | Freelance Writer

I offer a broad and diverse range of writing services. Get in touch!

www.mathew-owen.co.uk

2 350 140

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 18h

Disney+ home of fine cartoon and Predator.

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 18h

Oh the soundtrack is GREAT

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 20h

Watching "Tron: Legacy" again and boy does it look great. Shame about the utterly vapid plot.

2 6

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 23h

I'm afraid so.

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 23h

My version of this is that Vought, Yarvin etc represent a kind of braindead right-Gramscianism, which leaves out all the interesting subtleties and treats civil society _only_ as a realm of indoctrination, where one ideological master-narrative can readily be substituted for another.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 1d

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

36 250 1.4K

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

ceej @ceej.online · 1d

the disastrous refusal of the self-styled silicon valley technokings to keep anyone in their lives capable of questioning their increasingly incomprehensible politics has lead to a crisis of thinking so severe that a fifty-eight year old man believes something is important because he knows about it

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 1d

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

48 140 970

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 23h

Almost constantly.

1 1

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

Hannya Kay @hannyakay.bsky.social · 1d

Publication day! My soft, sweet, spooky story (with my take on romance lol) is now available to Black Hare Press Patreon subscribers 🎉🎉🎉
Thank you BHP ❤️🎃

6 7 11

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 23h

This is the best explanation I have heard so far.

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

BRENNAN: CBS confirmed the Trump administration rescinded the layoffs of CDC scientists. Some were involved with the federal measles response. How does a mistake like this happen?

VANCE: The govt shutdown inevitably leads to some chaos. It happened because of Schumer

B: But this was a WH decision

380 860 3.2K

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 1d

seems like a non-insignificant percentage of rage against the machine's fanbase are young republican men driving SUVs bopping their head to anti-oil, pro-immigrant songs thinking the lyrics are about how they wish their suburban parents would get off their back

Tom Morello tweets: "Fascinating that all those “don’t tread on me” posers and their AR-15’s are nowhere to be seen and government tyranny is instead being opposed by a guy in an inflatable frog suit."

Someone named Manny replies: "@grok
why do some people say Tom Morello and band mates are RAGE FOR THE MACHINE and not against ?"

230 1.8K 12K

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 1d

And there are plenty of Ethernet jacks?

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 1d

Maybe there's something in this Nigel Farage and Nathan Gill Russian bribes story....

Lots of stories about Nathan Gill and Russian bribes.

130 610 1.7K

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

The Times & Sunday Times @thetimes.com · 1d

Prince Andrew allegedly told convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein “we are in this together” the day after the picture of him with Virginia Giuffre was published

Prince Andrew told Jeffrey Epstein ‘we are in this together’

www.thetimes.com

2 17 27

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 1d

I'm on it (basically to follow some brands/businesses) but jeeez it's as bad as Twitter for trolling and shitty behaviour.

1 6

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 1d

It's interesting how many of the accounts pouring out venom (1) claim to be "woke", "antifa" etc (usually when espousing view which would make MAGA blush), and (2) have created no posts of their own, only added replies to others.

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

Spooky Content Enjoyer @sirsandgoblin.bsky.social · 1d

How many of these damn heck things have I drawn I keep finding more

Drawing of a bird with "I am very tired" on it's chest

Drawing of two birds one saying "I want to go back to bed" the other saying "me too"

1 2 6

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 1d

Threads really is utterly dreadful.

8 61

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 1d

So AWS has got TV ads which feature the Stones' "Jumping Jack Flash" (one of the greatest songs of all time don't @ me). There is zero thematic connection between AWS and the song. It just feels like a flex – "we make so much money we can afford the eight figures the Stones wanted"

5 10

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 1d

“the manosphere generates its own untested and speculative evolutionary hypotheses, or “just-so stories”, about men, women, and society…

..we reflect on implications for evolutionary scholars and for the field as a whole, in terms of ethics and public image”

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A Hundred and Two Just-So Stories: Exploring the Lay Evolutionary Hypotheses of the Manosphere | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core

A Hundred and Two Just-So Stories: Exploring the Lay Evolutionary Hypotheses of the Manosphere

www.cambridge.org

2 31 55

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

Tom Joscelyn @tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 1d

“I spent three nights and three days in federal custody. During that time, I was never told what I was charged with, was not allowed to shower despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, had no phone call to my family, and no access to an attorney.” - George Retes, U.S. citizen and veteran.

I’m a US citizen and a veteran. ICE arrested me for no reason.

Jailed for three days without an explanation or ability to notify anyone, George Retes argues the only path to healing starts with the government taking accountability for its actions.

newsletter.ofthebrave.org

340 5.9K 11K

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

UNITED24 Media @united24media.com · 1d

⚡️Russia has struck Ukraine’s rail network nearly 300 times since August, Vice PM Oleksii Kuleba said.

He noted that railway crews restore infrastructure within 4 hours on average—keeping trains running the same day.

221 workers have been injured and 37 killed since the invasion.

4 43 110

Reposted by Ian Betteridge

Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 1d

Starting to think this Thiel guy is a big idiot

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 1d

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

23 21 280

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 1d

This man is basically putting every other man on the platform to shame.

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · Jul 21

Sorry for the string of videos, but this is amazing and makes me wonder if this is what life could be like if we all just logged off the internet.

IG risolve

1 5 19