Aaah democracy is still alive, a little, in the U.S. The White House is still mindful of public opinion

Capitalism has been “late stage capitalism” for soooo long now … it’s turned into early stage capitalism.

This is deeply offensive to European ears on so many levels How to lose an ally

The UK, where the day after a decision to take half a million children out of poverty, the media & political world has been full of sneering at those same children & their families, labelling them as ‘Benefits Street’, while the same people are moaning about a tax on £2m mansions. Shameful stuff.

I think this church properly expresses the nature of religion

I'm on 22 years, same sentiment.

I think teaching staff using AI to generate teaching materials ... should face immediate dismissal.

South Africa's G20 pulls a fast one on Trump, dropping a declaration that slams climate denial, debt traps, and endless wars, proving America's empire is crumbling into irrelevance. #G20 #SouthAfrica

There is moral progress

So many presumably, ostensibly, great men and women fell off the wagon, went rogue, lost their moral compass, showed a disturbingly ugly side to them in old age - after success. Solzhenitsyn, James Watson, Helen Keller... Was it always there, or does old age and success do something to your compass?

“We live in an era where personal expression is saturated by digital filters, hivemind thinking is promoted through endless algorithms and academic freedom itself is under assault by the weakest minds among us. #AI has only made this worse. It is a crisis.” #HigherEd www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...

“Humans achieve agency by composing their lives in their own language. Without a narrative viewpoint on one’s life, there can be no reconstruction of that life, no ethical experience.”

😂😂😂

This is so important right now. AI is not intelligent. AI are immensely powerful and fast word processors that quite literally reflect the ignorance (yes, we are all ignorant) of the user. A fool will get AI foolishness. A domain expert will get AI expertise. A student cannot learn from AI

Should we be so surprised that a Nationalist loves a Socialist?

this

So many PhDs on Artificial Intelligence being embarked upon now… only for students to find that by the time they finish, their thesis is one among thousands on this topic, all saying similar things, and everyone is already thoroughly bored by the subject.

Great photo, by the way, perfectly illustrative of the point being made.

A reminder that if we ensure Ukraine remains sovereign and free - Ukraine will become Europe’s security guarantee against the Russian war machine.

The real question here is: how on Earth could it have happened that, even if ever so briefly, swastikas and nooses were *not* classified as hate symbols? Proclaiming yourself a Catholic is "potentially divisive". Tattooing a swastika on your chest is ... a little more.

If the U.S. wants to permanently ban a European state from joining NATO on account of the interests of a belligerent neighbour (who is not a NATO member)... then the EU should create its own self-defense union and admit Ukraine. And NATO can be left to wither, as an empty shell...

Been saying it...

The collective reticence, from both sides of the aisle, to release all data on the Epstein scandal strongly suggests that large numbers of important figures from the U.S. elite are implicated - and that the system (Congress) was trying to protect all of them (not just Trump).

If "ruling out the possibility" without an indication of the *size* of the possibility is the standard, then there are no evidence-based claims. None whatsoever. Epistemology 101 or Philosophy of Science 101 would have been useful here. Even just a bit of Descartes

I'm a friend of Ukraine, but it needs to be said. When it comes to decoration, the Ukrainian taste is as bad as Donald Trump's.

Looking forward to a world where oil prices have fallen drastically due to renewables, and Saudi Arabia is poor again.

As a one-time democratically elected leader Major should understand exactly the reasons why political leaders are 'timid' and fail to speak their minds It's built into a democratic system (no matter which type) that if you assess that saying X will destroy your chances of reelection, you don't say X

This is just embarrassing. Why are we putting up with this. How did we get here

The concept that you should have to pay for an ambulance makes this central European's mind boggle. What happened to the implicit social compact, solidarity and the rationality of universal healthcare? I swear, the US heart & mind is broken. And I once considered living and working in that country..

“While the AI industry claims its models can “think,” “reason,” and “learn,” their supposed achievements rest on marketing hype and stolen intellectual labor. In reality, AI erodes academic freedom, weakens critical reading, and subordinates the pursuit of knowledge to corporate interests.”

Yep. If you grew up in Europe, went to an all-white school and read the standard textbooks, you grew up with a "we-are-the-good-guys-who-brought-medicine-railways-and-civilisation-to-the-grateful-colonies"-narrative. At least, I did in the 80s. Doesn't look like much has changed.

Elias Allen: The leading scientific instrument maker in seventeenth-century London #histsci #histtech thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/t...

kenntnisloser Dampfplauderer ... hahahahaha (knowledge-deprived steam-powered talker) I *love* German

“More than a decade after the first HPV vaccination programmes rolled out, data from multiple countries reveals a dramatic fall in cervical cancers and precancers, confirming that HPV vaccines are highly effective and extremely safe” www.gavi.org/vaccineswork...

Who would have thunk…

China hit 1,003 TWh of solar by October — and this still isn’t the steep part of the S-curve. This is the warm-up. Solar doubled in 2 yrs, installs are exploding, #BESS is hitting price floors, curtailment is becoming a storage goldmine. The next doubling? 12–16 months. “Holy shit” phase loading. ⚡

"Kuki’s been told “I love you” tens of millions of times." Humankind really, truly does not deserve to survive 😖 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/o...

Perhaps the bubble will burst when people realise (very soon) that AI is intrinsically limited, and that you cannot polish a turd

Hmmm … I would have expected that to have been fixed by now. But perhaps even *consistent safe driving* is a cognitive task of a complexity that’s ultimately beyond AI?

Amen

Maybe I should print this on the first page of every future Course Pack, and include it in my e-mail footer. Especially since University leadership *still* seems to think that AI-tutors, individualized learning, and all that jazz ... are the future.

They’re not going after criminals. “Criminals don’t get up and go to work and pay their bills.” These are not criminals; they’re hard-working people. EVERY LAST WORD OF THIS🔥

Wow. I love really old urban photographs. The more time passes, the more photography turns into a Time Machine.

The Oval Office looks atrocious. All that's missing is a golden throne, now. Or perhaps a slot machine.

'Solar has seen prices fall a staggering 99.9% since 1975' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The entire iPhone 17 lineup looks like it has a disease... giant warts growing on the back. The expanded "plateau" on the back is hideous. You just *know* these would never have been approved under Jobs or Ive.

Pope Leo absolutely cooking

Umberto Eco warned about EXACTLY this in 1995’s “Ur-Fascism,” and some of us have been warning about it ever since we first read it as it was widely circulated after 9/11 theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umbe...