Joshua Barretto
@jsbarretto.com
Software engineering / security / safety. Also gardening, urbanism, lefty politics, DIY, and occasional dog photos. Really, really dislikes fascists. Born at 364 ppm. He/him.
More active on Mastodon: social.coop/@jsbarretto
More active on Mastodon: social.coop/@jsbarretto
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
me: i don’t feel safe with other people. like, any praise in general my brain dismisses it
Therapist Who is a Caveman: me see. you am deserve love. we all am. yes. need love survive
me: i guess. it’s just hard trying to function when you still got your training wheels on
Caveman Therapist: wheel?
Therapist Who is a Caveman: me see. you am deserve love. we all am. yes. need love survive
me: i guess. it’s just hard trying to function when you still got your training wheels on
Caveman Therapist: wheel?
November 19, 2025 at 10:24 PM
me: i don’t feel safe with other people. like, any praise in general my brain dismisses it
Therapist Who is a Caveman: me see. you am deserve love. we all am. yes. need love survive
me: i guess. it’s just hard trying to function when you still got your training wheels on
Caveman Therapist: wheel?
Therapist Who is a Caveman: me see. you am deserve love. we all am. yes. need love survive
me: i guess. it’s just hard trying to function when you still got your training wheels on
Caveman Therapist: wheel?
It's 1:40 am, witching hour. The mundane madness of British politics recedes into yesterday's dusk, and the ungodly horrors of US politics come out to screech in the moonlight.
November 21, 2025 at 1:41 AM
It's 1:40 am, witching hour. The mundane madness of British politics recedes into yesterday's dusk, and the ungodly horrors of US politics come out to screech in the moonlight.
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
A perpetual quirk of voter psychology (and one I'm not really sure you can 'solve') is people automatically assuming that all punitive measures will apply to them. See ULEZ in London for another example
It does make pushing through policies harder than it probably should be
It does make pushing through policies harder than it probably should be
A thing that I remember vividly from GE2015 is when you'd knock on the door of a never-gonna-be-hit-by-the-mansion-tax house that was never going to be hit by a mansion tax who really thought their house's inflated price meant it might be close to it. Turns out that has spread to officials!
I sometimes feel like I am going mad.
Owning a £1.5m home is not normal in London or the South East of England.
Owning a £1.5m home is not normal in London or the South East of England.
November 20, 2025 at 11:00 AM
A perpetual quirk of voter psychology (and one I'm not really sure you can 'solve') is people automatically assuming that all punitive measures will apply to them. See ULEZ in London for another example
It does make pushing through policies harder than it probably should be
It does make pushing through policies harder than it probably should be
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
I suspect they're delaying it because its mental and unworkable - and is clearly aimed at the exclusion of trans, and gender conforming people, from society.
November 19, 2025 at 10:39 PM
I suspect they're delaying it because its mental and unworkable - and is clearly aimed at the exclusion of trans, and gender conforming people, from society.
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
LLMs give people with delusional belief systems a way to organise those beliefs. The model fills in gaps, supplies connective tissue, and wraps the madness in formal language.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
November 19, 2025 at 2:22 PM
LLMs give people with delusional belief systems a way to organise those beliefs. The model fills in gaps, supplies connective tissue, and wraps the madness in formal language.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
The Danish Social Democrats are currently on course for their worst election result since at least the Second World War, despite their brand of far-right accommodationism being touted as a blueprint for other centre-left parties.
November 18, 2025 at 11:58 AM
The Danish Social Democrats are currently on course for their worst election result since at least the Second World War, despite their brand of far-right accommodationism being touted as a blueprint for other centre-left parties.
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
Center-left parties have persuaded themselves that cruelty is a virtue, rather than the grossly uncivilized vice it is
Then they're shocked to pieces when they lose elections because their constituents don't merely abandon, but actively loathe them
Then they're shocked to pieces when they lose elections because their constituents don't merely abandon, but actively loathe them
November 18, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Center-left parties have persuaded themselves that cruelty is a virtue, rather than the grossly uncivilized vice it is
Then they're shocked to pieces when they lose elections because their constituents don't merely abandon, but actively loathe them
Then they're shocked to pieces when they lose elections because their constituents don't merely abandon, but actively loathe them
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
We have forcibly installed the Stupid Machine in all of your homes but, of course, under no circumstances should you trust the Stupid Machine.
November 18, 2025 at 9:45 AM
We have forcibly installed the Stupid Machine in all of your homes but, of course, under no circumstances should you trust the Stupid Machine.
When the next stupid techbro hysteria rolls around, can we please recognise it for what it is before it takes half our GDPs with it?
November 18, 2025 at 9:45 AM
When the next stupid techbro hysteria rolls around, can we please recognise it for what it is before it takes half our GDPs with it?
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
Somewhere out there, the dumbest human being you’ve ever seen is saying “buy the dip” into a podcast mic.
November 18, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Somewhere out there, the dumbest human being you’ve ever seen is saying “buy the dip” into a podcast mic.
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
Lord Dubs said he was "lost for words".
Labour Peer Who Fled The Nazis Condemns His Party's Immigration Crackdown
Lord Dubs said he was "lost for words".
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
November 18, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Lord Dubs said he was "lost for words".
I live in a vain hope that a local election result of cataclysmically awful propositions might have the same effect on the corpse of Labour as a defibrillator and somehow somebody with either a brain or a heart (either will do at this point) rises from the backbenches but I know I'm lying to myself.
November 17, 2025 at 2:31 PM
I live in a vain hope that a local election result of cataclysmically awful propositions might have the same effect on the corpse of Labour as a defibrillator and somehow somebody with either a brain or a heart (either will do at this point) rises from the backbenches but I know I'm lying to myself.
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
matt yglesias' primary claim about politics is that to win elections, democrats should adopt the strategy which has given starmer a 13% approval rating in the UK
November 16, 2025 at 8:26 PM
matt yglesias' primary claim about politics is that to win elections, democrats should adopt the strategy which has given starmer a 13% approval rating in the UK
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
Labour in opposition: the Home Office's Rwanda scheme is an affront to human decency
Labour in government: if anything my ideas are getting *better* the more times this horse kicks me in the head
Labour in government: if anything my ideas are getting *better* the more times this horse kicks me in the head
November 17, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Labour in opposition: the Home Office's Rwanda scheme is an affront to human decency
Labour in government: if anything my ideas are getting *better* the more times this horse kicks me in the head
Labour in government: if anything my ideas are getting *better* the more times this horse kicks me in the head
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
It's bad enough that this isn't even a novel idea, but I also have to wonder how much actual reckoning as a society we've done with the legacies of antisemitism and racism if "we'll seize your jewellery", for whatever reason, doesn't raise big fucking alarm bells
November 17, 2025 at 9:48 AM
It's bad enough that this isn't even a novel idea, but I also have to wonder how much actual reckoning as a society we've done with the legacies of antisemitism and racism if "we'll seize your jewellery", for whatever reason, doesn't raise big fucking alarm bells
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
This is the deeper thing. Through the government's own ineptitude it has made the actual business of governing impossible *with a three digit majority*
Both the Budget and the asylum bill are disintegrating before they've even been formally announced.
Absolutely dead government.
Absolutely dead government.
November 17, 2025 at 9:55 AM
This is the deeper thing. Through the government's own ineptitude it has made the actual business of governing impossible *with a three digit majority*
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
There's the constituency of 'I just don't like visible and audible difference' which Labour can't appeal to. And there's the 'I don't like that this has measurably made my area worse by introducing an insecure, economically detached class of people', which this policy makes worse.
November 15, 2025 at 3:06 PM
There's the constituency of 'I just don't like visible and audible difference' which Labour can't appeal to. And there's the 'I don't like that this has measurably made my area worse by introducing an insecure, economically detached class of people', which this policy makes worse.
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
Tommy Robinson is claiming credit for the language/policy being used by the Labour government (about deporting people found to be refugees once their home country is deemed safe)
November 15, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Tommy Robinson is claiming credit for the language/policy being used by the Labour government (about deporting people found to be refugees once their home country is deemed safe)
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
What you have to understand is that Labour had to make the tax pledge so they would win a majority of 500 instead of 80, which was essential so they could…????
November 13, 2025 at 11:09 PM
What you have to understand is that Labour had to make the tax pledge so they would win a majority of 500 instead of 80, which was essential so they could…????
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
Labour government with 400 seats can’t raise income tax to invest in public services. Someone hook up Attlee to a generator
November 13, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Labour government with 400 seats can’t raise income tax to invest in public services. Someone hook up Attlee to a generator
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
pretty funny in retrospect that QAnon hinged on the idea that powerful elites at the highest levels of government were smart enough to talk in code when sending emails to each other about their despicable crimes
November 12, 2025 at 10:08 PM
pretty funny in retrospect that QAnon hinged on the idea that powerful elites at the highest levels of government were smart enough to talk in code when sending emails to each other about their despicable crimes
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
just opening up the new Epstein docs at random:
November 12, 2025 at 9:42 PM
just opening up the new Epstein docs at random:
Reposted by Joshua Barretto
IMO the worst thing about this government is its failure to see Trump, Farage, anti-immigration rhetoric, rising racism, and the 'gender critical' lobby as connected elements of a global war against liberalism and social democracy – and instead treating them as discrete issues to be 'managed'.
November 11, 2025 at 9:30 AM
IMO the worst thing about this government is its failure to see Trump, Farage, anti-immigration rhetoric, rising racism, and the 'gender critical' lobby as connected elements of a global war against liberalism and social democracy – and instead treating them as discrete issues to be 'managed'.
Reform are a fifth column.
🧵/ How far does the public support net zero?
Support: 60%
Oppose: 25%
Net support by party
Green: +81
Lib Dem: +67
Lab: +64
Con: +11
Reform: -44
yougov.co.uk/politics/art...
Support: 60%
Oppose: 25%
Net support by party
Green: +81
Lib Dem: +67
Lab: +64
Con: +11
Reform: -44
yougov.co.uk/politics/art...
November 11, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Reform are a fifth column.