Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

JDKessey

@jdkessey.bsky.social

670 followers 1.6K following 5K posts

Wannabe Filmmaker, Writer, Proud Bisexual. Self-taught Chinese Historian. Opinions are my own. Bigots get blocked. Enquiries: [email protected] Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@jdkessey LinkTREE: https://linktr.ee/jdkessey

www.youtube.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · Aug 15

Send me media recommendations.

4 1 3

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 4h

A skeptic uses tools to attain their position. A cynic assumes the terrible and looks for reasons to feel terrible.

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 4h

Always note that a cynic will list problems (real, but more often, imagined) while doing absolutely nothing to fix said issues, however easy a fix or evil the situation.

Reposted by JDKessey

John Q Public @conjurial.bsky.social · 4h

John Q Public @conjurial.bsky.social · 6h

it’s a deeply unhealthy culture antithetical to truth-seeking. If science worked this way, the people and institutions who opposed Ignatz Semmelweis would have been insisting germs didn’t cause disease up until 1950

1 1 3

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 4h

Tall Poppy Syndrome is the worst.

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 4h

It's also anti-intellectual.

Many a conversation has been ruined by one person trying to bully someone for showing genuine passion in their crafts/interests.

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 4h

In practice, cynicism doesn't change a bad situation and it often perpetuates said situation.

All it has ever done is tell decent, happy people that they should feel bad for not being miserable 24/7.

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 5h

a lazy cynical affect is one of the worst things you can do to yourself as a reporter or analyst, it will corrode not only your work but your soul.

1 1

Reposted by JDKessey

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 4h

one of the nicest things Chinese friends have ever said to me (a few times in different forms) is "you write about China like it's your own country." An awful lot of American reporters don't even write about *America* like it's their own country.

3 61 550

Reposted by JDKessey

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 4h

one of the reasons I was substantially ahead of the curve during the pandemic was that I treated China as a real place, and assumed that the Chinese government and scientists as making decisions for real reasons - not always good ones, but real ones!

9 25 430

Reposted by JDKessey

William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 5h

this is also why I stopped really giving a shit about the leftist-liberal distinction online. not that there aren't like substantive ideological differences that matter in terms of policy, etc. but practically it's mainly just which table do you sit at high school clique shit. I don't fucking care.

4 9 140

Reposted by JDKessey

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 5h

a lazy cynical affect is one of the worst things you can do to yourself as a reporter or analyst, it will corrode not only your work but your soul.

12 130 970

Reposted by JDKessey

John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 5h

The whole point of democracy is so one person's derangement does not become everybody's problem. It's social hygiene. The fact the richest men in the West are a mix of grotty twelve year olds and deranged apocalypse fanatics is a problem, and we should be honest about it.

Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 6h

Someone went there:

"It Kind of Seems Like Peter Thiel is Losing It"

via @futurism.com

futurism.com/future-socie...

It Kind of Seems Like Peter Thiel Is Losing It

He's spent the past month delivering four high-octane lectures in San Francisco's downtown waterfront on the antichrist.

futurism.com

71 1.6K 5.5K

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 10h

Everyone involved in these conversations has spent endless hours explaining to conservative friends that this would happen through a thick wall of emotion.

I'm benevolent but, at a certain point, it feels like disrespect.

1 2

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 14h

Note how they're never disturbed for wanting to commit violence and are more concerned with who gets to use said violence, like it's a special toy or treat that only the special children can own.

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 14h

It is completely okay to feel disturbed by people who seem to be looking for violence and are very glib about the subject. They'll frame it in moralistic terms but it simply comes down to "I am immature and I see myself controlling the magnifying glass burning the ants."

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 4d

Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?

1 2

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 17h

Also, the affair with the stripper is possibly a reference to Rands affair with Nathaniel Branden with a similar intense fallout (less murder and more self-pitying rage)

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 17h

Knowing more about Ayn Rand now makes Bioshock a more interesting experience.

Along with being a stand-in for a Randian protagonist, Andrew Ryan is also a stand-in for Ayn Rand herself. She even argued and went on tangents the same way he does.

2 2

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 17h

I believe in The Right to be Forgotten.

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 4d

Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 18h

Feels more like a study group than a bunch of diverse working-class members trying to get the job done.

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 18h

Trying to get through 'The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet' and you can tell that gender and queer politics was a niche in the early 2010s. A lot of "Look at this bold exploration" being delivered to me who's been living it for 10+ years.

Reposted by JDKessey

Mrs. Detective PikaBOO, Esq. @clapifyoulikeme.favrd.social · 19h

The Venn diagram of people willing to do the hard work and people willing to bitch about the hard work not being done to their liking is two circles

Cadence ”Port Game Use Crane” Andrysiak @supportourpoops.bsky.social · 4d

ngl it's real funni to hear people in a union meeting chat up "STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE" when they can't even show up to an informational picket

13 83

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 18h

Incidentally, I knew immediately that Crowder abused his wife after he expressed his opinions on no-fault divorce.

JDKessey @jdkessey.bsky.social · 18h

To frame divorce as a societal failing is to frame loveless marriages and abused children as being a success story.

No man should have such absolute control over the women in their lives.

1 1 5

Reposted by JDKessey

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 19h

it is 1979, I am watching my son, bart, being born

it is 1989, I am watching my son, bart, being born

it is 2015, I am watching my son, bart, being born

I am tired of these people, tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives.

2 20 210

Reposted by JDKessey

Roth Cardona @zrrion.bsky.social · 22h

This is a really good way to read A Canticle For Leibowitz. Really nice radio drama.

NPR Presents, A CANTICLE FOR LIEBOWITZ In 15 Parts : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

From NPR now complete in 15 parts...This post-Apocalyptic award-winning tale of Catholic Monks who preserve learning to rise from the Dark Ages when society's...

archive.org

1 15 61

Reposted by JDKessey

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1d

As a reminder to everyone, a key part of the Bari Weiss origin story is her livetweeting editorial meetings.
In the institutions she critiques she treats leakers (including herself) as principled dissenters. In the institutions she controls, she expects loyal silence.

Bari Weiss tweeting about the civil war in the NY Times

Another NY Times employee says: "I am in the same meeting that Bari appears to be livetweeting"

90 1.4K 5K