Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 9h

Ok! So I’d say the play is self-explanatory, but you could do some Cold War stuff with them to set it up. I mean, the Wall is like a metaphor from a movie, it’s so on the nose - but it was also a horrible line drawn in the world.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 11h

Wait, is this the movie in NYC or the play in London?

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 12h

How does D.R. & Quinch look in 2025?

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 19h

🤣🤣🤣

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 20h

I feel people may not have liked the idea of telling the government what they did with their time.

waltydunlop @waltydunlop.bsky.social · 23h

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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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 20h

(As is trust in newspapers, for not entirely dissimilar reasons.)

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 23h

France is not alone in its political crisis – belief in a democratic world is vanishing | Simon Tisdall

The populist right offers a solution in the form of turning back the clock. Macron and his counterparts need to find a different answer fast, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Nick Harkaway

South Dakota Department of Propaganda @southdakota.bsky.social · 1d

A simple four panel comic with a round character. Top caption reads Before you leave the house, check you have. Panel 1 shows keys with a banana keychain, labeled Keys. Panel 2 shows a green wallet, labeled Wallet. Panel 3 shows a blue phone, labeled Phone. Panel 4 shows the character holding a colorful tangled scribble, labeled The vague sense that you have forgotten something. A playful take on the keys wallet phone routine.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 20h

Put more diamonds on the lobster. No, better diamonds. Now bring me an silk rug. No, it has to match the lobster. the diamonds alone must be visible as the lobster moves across the rug in a futile search for the ocean. Wait! I need seawater also or it will die. Fetch some that smells of rosé…

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 20h

This seems like a mistake.

Matthias Monroy @matthimon.bsky.social · Aug 29

The EU-Commission wants to negotiate a very sensitive agreement that would allow US authorities direct (!) access to police-stored fingerprints & facial images in Europe.
Potentially, all travelers could be affected by this #EBSP – and people in need for protection.
digit.site36.net/2025/08/29/e...

"Border Security" with USA: Brussels ready to give deep access to biometric data in EU states | Matthias Monroy

The European Commission wants to negotiate an agreement that would allow US authorities direct access to police-stored fingerprints and facial images in Europe. Potentially, all travelers could be…

digit.site36.net

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 20h

You really don’t need any context, but let’s assume this is a Nerval reference.

Fishbourne Roman Palace @romanpalace.bsky.social · Dec 17

The results of this experiment appear to be inconclusive...
😳

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Reposted by Nick Harkaway

Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 21h

This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky.

No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.

Well – no. Bluesky may or may not be, as one centre-right friend who felt unwelcome put it, “self-righteous island”. But the idea that’s why we went is nonsense. That I’ve largely stopped posting on a site that’s done more to shape my career and social circle than the rest of the internet combined is less about avoiding rival opinions (I love arguing with people who are wrong!) than with the fact the site simply became unusable. It stopped generating the things (good jokes, interesting debate, clicks) I wanted; it became extremely good at generating the things (racists, pornbots, racist pornbots) I did not.

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Reposted by Nick Harkaway

Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 20h

Germany decided not to turn its back on privacy, at the last minute. We're very happy for that.

But we're not out of the woods yet, and awareness raising like this is essential.

Follow bsky.app/profile/figh... to stay up to date, and see a bit more on where we are here: bsky.app/profile/mere...

Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 3d

We're so relieved to see Germany reaffirm its opposition to the dangerous Chat Control proposal--the one that would mandate mass scanning of communications. Germany's long been a solid champion of privacy, and the news that it was considering backing mass surveillance was alarming. 1/

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1d

The issue isn’t how you tax a lawyer with a £300,000 salary - we do that already. The issue is how you tax a fortune in the (say) £50,000,000+ pound range in a meaningful way.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1d

I think the deeper issue is accumulated massive wealth and - relatedly - power. A Norway style tax is a reasonable redistribution, but doesn't materially affect someone with a billion dollars.

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Reposted by Nick Harkaway

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 2d

...but the fundamental error here (as with many other articles blaming fiscal framework and/or OBR) is that these are 2nd order issues.

Ultimately, it's fiscal sustainability (as judged by markets short-term that's the constraint. The UK needs some combination of higher growth and higher taxes...

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Reposted by Nick Harkaway

Girl’s Own advice @girlsown.bsky.social · 2d

We are sorry to hear you have failed to pass your examination, and can only advise you to try again. We do not at all agree with your idea that “the only thing that can be done for you is to run away to London and try to get on the stage” nor do we see how that would help you.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1d

*politically, not poli. Autocorrect having a field day today.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1d

A lot of things that work in Switzerland do not work the same way here. Referendums, for example! But yeah, anything that smacks of a deal is poli tricky, I suspect. Yet that’s inevitably what happens: tax structures become arcane and two sets of accountants deal.

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Reposted by Nick Harkaway

Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · Oct 25

I have released three new prints. This is one of them.
They are all available now: tomgauld.com/shop

A print of a cartoon by Tom Gauld.
A view of the International Space Station. A cat in a space suit floats outside. An astronaut within the station looks out of a window and says "In? But I just let you out."

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1d

There’s an extremely annoying conversation about what is a tax that works vs what is one that is conceptually satisfying.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1d

The Swiss have a “Lump sum” tax option which is calculated not against wealth but annual expenditure - so if you live large you pay a lot of tax. I rather like that idea, and I wonder if it’s just more likely to catch mega-wealth than wealth taxes are.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1d

Yeah. The point is, I think, that in all three cases the wealth tax plus other taxes work out kind of ordinary. That’s not a reason not to do it, but they’re not transformative.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1d

And two regions of Spain seem not to charge the wealth tax at all, including Madrid? In other words they way they’ve put levied the tax without causing a ruckus seems to be not asking the mega wealthy to pay much of it. Which tallies with the £2bn in revenue vs UK’s proposed £24bn.

How Spain put up wealth taxes – without chasing away the billionaires

Amid calls for Rachel Reeves to bring in a new levy for the super-rich, Madrid offers lessons for policymakers

www.theguardian.com

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1d

The Norway example is quite interesting. Their tax tax starts very low (assets of £125k) and increases only by a fairly small increment at assets of, what, £1.5m? It’s presently a hot potato, but I suspect that’s somewhat confected.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s....

‘People are so angry’: how wealth tax became a battleground in Norway’s election

Issue creates clear dividing line between left and right, as populists target voters with vow to scrap levy

www.theguardian.com

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1d

I would certainly expect the IFS to take that line.

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