Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 7h

James May to give it some star power would be a good shout

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 9h

For the love of God, go outside!

firstnameed.bsky.social @firstnameed.bsky.social · 10h

Parasite should be required viewingif there are actually any more high school Civics classes anymore.

1

Reposted by Will Cooling

ceej @ceej.online · 12h

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 · 15h

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.

46 140 930

Reposted by Will Cooling

Chris Terry-Enescu @cjterry.bsky.social · 12h

3 120 430

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 14h

Quite funny that people aggressively defending their decision to leave Twitter can't bear to not be involved in the discourse surrounding an article they can't read

12

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Didn't Goodfellas explain this? The problem with whales is they think in terms of opportunity cost, they don't see a $100 net gain on a $10 bet as $100 won, but $1000 lost by not betting $100. Their very success haunts them because they think they could have gotten more if they had been bolder

5

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

6

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

A silly example, but just shows how people want to impose their ideas on areas that has nothing to do with them

1

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Over on Substack I had a *vegeterian, non-patriot* dispute that a Muslim Deli using lamb ham as a substitute for pork in Ham and Cheese Sandwiches was a sign of integration because "lamb and cheese isn't a real ham and cheese sandwich". And "I'm like DUDE - you don't eat ham or care about the UK!?!"

1 2

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely, but it gets at people's ideology. They care about the gender binary, and want to maintain. Same way we often conflate racism with white supremacy i.e. some people just hate everyone different to the but others are happy to live and let live as long as they and theirs are in charge

1 1

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Likewise a lot of the "trans backlash" is more specifically a non-binary backlash because enby's challenge to the idea of gender binary is much more threatening to heteronormative society. You see this in opinion polling where the support for trans women using female toilets rests on bottom surgery

1 1

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

I do not see how the tensions in American society can wait until the next mid-terms let alone the next general election to be resolved

Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 1d

Chicago priest Fr. Larry Dowling describes procession to ICE facility: “No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”

1 7

Reposted by Will Cooling

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 1d

Unconstitutionally taking money that the law says must be spent on one purpose & using it for something else—when it's to establish personalist control over the FUCKING MILITARY—is about as dangerous a constitutional crisis/failure as you can imagine

Via: www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

The Office of Management and Budget sent a notification to Congress about their intent to use research and development funds to pay members of the military, two sources with direct knowledge tell NBC News.

A spokesperson for the OMB confirmed to NBC News that it plans to use the research and development funds and that there are two years' worth of funds available within the Department of Defense.

110 2K 5.7K

Reposted by Will Cooling

Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 1d

Texas is preparing emergency resources for wildfires and floods. The Texas National Guard should be THERE — not in Illinois.

We stand ready to support their return home so they are best positioned for helping Texans respond to any natural disasters.

Abbott activates emergency resources ahead of growing wildfire threat, flood risk in Texas

With expected growing wildfire danger across Texas and the potential for a flood risk this weekend, Gov. Greg Abbott is activating more state emergency response resources Friday.

trib.al

690 4.3K 15K

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

I think it's more that they're different, and the film deserves more credit for adapting the iconography of the book for contemporary American politics and their more hopeful take on politics

2

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Alan Moore did not imagine this. The Guy Fawkes mask for V was David Lloyd's idea, and it was The Wachowskis who changed the ending to be more upbeat with people power overwhelming the security services without a singular vanguard

Will Jennings 🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 1d

How Alan Moore imagined standing up to totalitarianism...

How the end of V for Vendetta would look if it were set in Portland.

2 5

Reposted by Will Cooling

Paul Singh @paulsingh.bsky.social · 1d

It’s not just the Jewish suitcase at the back of the hall. It’s the Muslim suitcase, the Hindu suitcase, the Sikh suitcase all sitting at the back of the hall, with many asking why they should stay in a country where both the left & right are immersed in racism & xenophobia.

The New World @thenewworldmag.bsky.social · 1d

It is extraordinary to report that, in 2025, the Jewish suitcase is back in the hall, waiting for the moment of sudden flight. I feel nothing but shame

✏️ Matthew d'Ancona

The Jewish suitcase is back in the hall

After Manchester, many British Jews are asking why they should remain in a country where they feel despised

www.thenewworld.co.uk

1 13 44

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Or a more delusional one.....

1 1

Reposted by Will Cooling

Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · Nov 19

Sometimes wonder whether the increasingly rentier structure of much of the US tech industry might generate Dutch Disease effects on the rest of the US economy

3 6 59

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

You were robbed! Typical metropolitan elitism denying the provincial revolution

4

Reposted by Will Cooling

Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 2d

More weight to @garius.bsky.social ‘s idea that McCartney’s The Frog Chorus (“We All Stand Together”) is the perfect anti-authoritarian protest song…

Reverend Jesus "H" Christ @reverendjesus.com · 2d

Blessed are the frogs, for they keep making authoritarians look incredibly stupid

Three persons in inflatable frog costumes. One of them is holding a nicely painted sign with two little cartoon frogs holding hands, below the text "FROGS TOGETHER STRONG"

3 18 94

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

A good reminder that the American Armed Forces was doing DEI/EDI work as early as the 1940s not because of "woke" but because interracial tensions is bad for morale and combat effectiveness youtu.be/SyYSBBE1DFw?...

A Welcome to Britain, 1943

YouTube video by US National Archives

youtu.be

5

Reposted by Will Cooling

Twlldun @twlldun.bsky.social · 2d

This is the correct take, by the way. Why I have come around to some form of a wealth tax is not because I fantasise that it can pay for the government programs I want (it won’t) or moral disgust at wealth (don’t care), but because of very rich people using their money to warp the body politic

William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 2d

Lot of people confidently missing the point in the replies to this: if every cent of Elon musks net wealth was liquid, which it isn’t, that’s not even enough money to run the govt for two weeks. The problem less that they have money, and more how they use that money in destabilizing ways.

Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 2d

“The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.”

3 15 92

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

British & French politics

1 5

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 2d

A big thing will be if Labour would be dumb enough not go in May 2029 rather than July (September?) 2029. A bunch of LibDems wins in key councils just months before the election might be the thing to push them over the top

2 2