Fascinating in FT: is our phone addiction behind the cliff edge in birth rates? (see QT post below) Or, um, as TikToker @aidanwalker.bsky.social puts it, are we all “sitting in the cuck chair” between AI slop and social media algorithms instead of making more people? www.tiktok.com/@aidanetcete...

Yeah a lot of European greats missing (and Japanese and Brazilian and so on), a list of lists would be fab

Ragtime, Outline, Kelly Gang? I rate this Guardian list (lower in the thread) but a little surprised not to see any Carey. For consistent pleasure from fiction he, Doctorow and Mantel are hard to beat. I also think these lists are more fun when any author can only appear once.

Tune in at 1:35pm CEST for Session 2: “The Brussels Defect?” with @coricrider.com, Manuel Muñiz, Soňa Muzikárová, and Elsa Sependa.

This has to be the end for the #Palantir #FDP A damning editorial in the BMJ Streeting: Make your move. Pick your side. www.bmj.com/content/393/... @coricrider.com @doctorow.pluralistic.net @comparesoftware.bsky.social @adebyrne.bsky.social @helensalisbury.bsky.social @bengoldacre.bsky.social

Maya Angelou on the joys of being edited

Zelligial sovereignty

Luna moth TL cleanse 🌙

@fotitech.bsky.social and friends rolling deep at today’s Konrad Adenauer Summit talking the future of social media and Eurosky. Feat. @tbbacherle.eu / @robin.berjon.com / @sebastian.eurosky.social with iconomy’s Felix Styma and Lena from Interface.

“The Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.” www.cnbc.com/2026/04/08/s...

🌟 New team, new look 🌟 At @fotitech.bsky.social, we believe Europe can have a better, freer, more sovereign future where tech truly serves the public. And we're growing to make it happen! 🇪🇺 PS - You can check out our new design here: 👉 futureinstitute.tech

everything we are seeing now is the consequence of having a political environment in which indifference to the deaths and suffering of other people - even by the state whose supposed responsibility is to safeguard their welfare - is a superpower rather than a political liability

Exciting News in eigener Sache: Als Germany Senior Lead bei @fotitech.bsky.social ( #FOTI / Future of Technology Institute) baue ich den pan-europäischen Think Tank in Deutschland auf. (1/4)

Europe’s energy dependence has become one of the critical vulnerabilities. Recent energy price shocks have transferred vast resources out of Europe, prompted emergency interventions and strained public finances. These costs are real, recurring and largely wasted. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

People should actually be very alarmed that while AP's business model is shot to bits, Americans are still very much reliant on the news it delivers. The alternatives in some cases are inferior or non-existent. apnews.com/article/news...

www.ft.com/content/2d2b... Ministers consider triggering the break clause in Palantir's NHS contract. They should. Palantir has no place in the NHS. @justtreatment.org @labourlewis.bsky.social @foxglovelegal.bsky.social

We have some announcements coming from FOTI but I’ll be posting (even) less for a couple weeks. It’s a beautiful world, friends, give yourself space to enjoy it sometimes ♥️

Eerily prophetic: theonion.com/bush-our-lon...

If I had to have guessed your favorite, I would have thought this one. It still makes me laugh, wryly though, not from the belly. The kicker quote is also excellent. theonion.com/cia-realizes...

Many great oldies here, but this one makes me belly laugh every time: theonion.com/pets-death-t...

The devil will be in the detail, but good to see Mistral acknowledging the need for AI developers to pay copyright holders for their content. Shows the role that a competitive market plays in challenging the extractive business models of incumbents. www.ft.com/content/d63d...

This is *the* antimonopoly insight. Firms convert economic power to political power to economic power, until we step in. “If we will not endure a King as a political power we should not endure a King over the production, transportation, and sale of the necessaries of life.” Sen. John Sherman, 1890

There is a real chance to choose something better for the NHS and drop Palantir. @foxglovelegal.bsky.social have campaigned tirelessly on this since 2020 - follow them for the latest. We can win this one. www.theregister.com/2026/03/20/u...

Sing it, Teresa

I don't know how to help folks process this, the investigation is far worse than I expected; for some time I've been gently correcting people close to me who saw Chavez as a quote worthy figure that we should look towards the people in our lives and our own successes rather than those long ago.

Saddened to learn this. Awhile back, I chose Chavez as the discussion character on a BBC show. Even then, Chavez was known to have been a complex, messianic, even bullying figure (Miriam Pawel's book makes this abundantly clear), but I had not heard of the abuse.

I think the corollary to Quinn’s point about Thiel’s Antichrist lectures here is one I encounter every day. In political life, what’s most interesting often isn’t what’s most important. This is hard for inquisitive souls to accept. But when we hide from this fact, we tend to spin our wheels.

Reminder to avoid the Thiel distraction. A point we’ve been hitting on tour is the temptation to apply intellectual history methods to a regime of accumulation (digital capitalism) is misguided. You won’t understand the Tech Right by reading books (they don’t read). Look at how they run their firms.

I am very excited to announce our partnership @eurosky.social with @igalia.com! The partnership will accelerate the development of independent, European-operated infrastructure for the open social web, enabling developers, organizations, & communities to build new applications. cc @xanlopez.xyz

👌

Palantir CEO promises that his technology will reduce educated women's economic and political power newrepublic.com/post/207693/...

After a year+ of debate about fixing our own dependencies (a la Newman and Farrell), quite striking to see the admin get a taste of its own medicine.

Always surprises me to see the badlands where I grew up through a photojournalist’s eyes. Here Raymond Depardon (showing in Montpelier) makes small town Texas look almost beautiful. And sometimes maybe it was. Plus, what an eye for colour 👌

in-ter-o-per-a-bi-li-ty It may be an unseemly long word, but it's beautiful to watch at work.

The perfect headline doesn’t exi…

"you're currently living through one of the largest positive technological revolutions in modern history - solar and batteries replacing fossil fuels - and you're hearing more about chatbots because the people who run our country make money selling oil" --‪@mtsw.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/70sb...

TBH Carole, Spectator aside, it's likely Mosley chickens out anyway. We were slated to debate Palantir x NHS in '23 - he bailed. I brought a cardboard cutout instead. Pretty sure I still have it if you want a prop 😅 digitalhealthrewired.com/2023/03/02/r... www.foxglove.org.uk/2023/03/07/p...

"I want new surface areas of expression" is such a beautiful way of putting the hunger we all have for something different out of the social (hell, the web) experience

This is worth your time.

FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?

I have just held a call with President Pedro Sánchez to express the EU’s full solidarity with Spain. The EU will always ensure that the interests of its Member States are fully protected.

Bravo from the EU council president.

Chair of UK’s cloud inquiry has quit, prob over foot-dragging. A crying shame. The CMA has the best-staffed antitrust team this side of the Atlantic. But Labour + Amazon’s Gurr nerfed it - it’s now like a think tank with compulsory information powers. www.themorningintelligence.uk/cma-cloud-in...

The arts are Britain’s pride and joy. TV, film, books, music. Gutting copyright just lets Sam Altman (and Musk and Google and the rest of big tech) pillage the family silver. I’d say ‘sell,’ but what will Britain receive in return? 0

[INTERVIEW] Deregulation could spell the end of the EU, Ribera warns In a sit-down interview with @contexte.com, Ursula von der Leyen’s top deputy defended the EU rulebook, pushing back against calls —including from German Chancellor — to ‘deregulate every sector’ www.contexte.com/eu/article/p...

small brain: free markets produce free press normal brain: consolidation of media into monopolies makes the press unfree large brain: despite media consolidation, media consumption is more diverse than ever galaxy brain: media fucked because of phone

The world’s best individual cheese is actually British* (It’s Stichelton. They don’t win as an overall national cheese league, I accept)

Polling actually slightly under-estimated the total left bloc vote, in the end. There's a massive and highly motivated anti-Reform vote in this country. Huge question for the next election about who has the authority to lead it and where.