Plugging @inbedwiththeright.bsky.social’s ‘Project 1933’ series again, as a compliment to this:

Done lots of riding this summer but still feel that in 3 weeks I may regret this morning's impulsive decision. Good opportunity to see how many sweets I can eat in 10 hours though...

If you had told me in 2012 that Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign manager would be posting like this 13 years later i would not have believed you

It’s appalling that these companies are not pulling these dangerous products off the market until they can make them safe. It’s appalling that regulators aren’t intervening. It’s appalling that the makers/boosters of genAI products are trying to ensure there can be no regulation.

Graham Simpson, Conservative MSP for Central Scotland since 2016, has just defected to Reform UK. This is the second time they've had an MSP via defection, following Michelle Ballantyne ahead of 2021. She led the Scottish arm to 0.2% of the vote; times have certainly changed since then.

I think we should be more concerned about this than is currently the case. And it should be easier to switch off AI functionality. Currently I'm using -AI in Google searches but there must be a better way? 3/3

Obviously the answer to this question is no, but more importantly, I will not take a question like this seriously until it is demonstrated to me that the makers of LLM technology, and their boosters in business and the media, have even the slightest concern for the suffering of actual human beings.

No new pictures, where are you at mentally. 🧀 @yrfatfriend.bsky.social

"We didn't come here to listen to a load of stuff about famine and colonialism and genocide and being forced into exile, we came to hear some Irish folk songs!"

Our pals The Mary Wallopers have just been pulled off stage and the PA shut down at VictoriousFest in Portsmouth for taking out a 🇵🇸 flag and saying Free Palestine Speak up against genocide in England and you're treated like a criminal Up the Mary Wallopers 💚🤍🧡 Free Palestine! Free the 6 counties!

we used to build household shrines to Going On The Computer and it's no coincidence that as we abandoned these we started straying further from god's light

An excellent no nonsense statement from the Women's Institute.

Aside from the frothing racism of these people, what is really grim about this is the idea that government are powerless to change culture. If your constituents think these things *they are wrong* and you need to explain why. It's not actually your job as an MP to rubber stamp fascism.

“How bad slavery was”.

All councils should, in fact, be “pro-pedestrian”

British transphobia is increasingly just a demand for every old sexist norm to be restored but with one or two tagalongs going "Yeah but we're doing it feministly" for PR purposess

Bottom line is that anti trans politics is part of fascist politics and you can’t fight fascism by taking on and surrendering to its ideas

“They’ll say trans rights when they draft a version thats immune to attacks from the right” Support for trans rights will never not be attacked from the right. Its the cowardice of not daring to stand strong in the face of it thats the problem. This is bargaining with our rights and compromising

I am one of the 14 authors who chose to leave the Polari Prize, and I find myself frustrated and saddened at the way this entire story has been represented. 1/

It's a shame the Guardian didn't give Sacha the opportunity to contribute to their piece. His thread is remarkably measured given the impact of this whole ordeal. But then I guess asking the authors who have withdrawn for their reasoning removes the possibility of painting them as an angry mob.

Why should non-binary teachers not be afforded same respect other teachers are granted? Why should they be denied recognition and made to feel excluded? It makes no difference to anyone else's life if they are referred to as Mx. Yet again, this government goes down the route of embedding bigotry.

The campaigns around VC salaries were useful in terms of highlighting low staff pay (at the bottom end of the scale in particular) but v damaging in terms of public conversations around funding. The average VC salary is c. 37 students a year. VC pay is not the issue here.

Been vaguely considering cycling home from my internship for a while - picked the absolute best evening for it 👌 Surprisingly good cycle infrastructure the whole way (except between the futures institute and haymarket which was exactly as bad as I feared)

Hard fucking same. The way that people talk about homeless people--like pests to be eradicated, or like threats to housed people--sends me into a rage. Treat people like people, you absolute gremlins.

So much that's terrible about this story, but with my homelessness researcher/discourse gal hat on, the juxtaposing of people experiencing homelessness with "criminals" says a lot about how a society views them (and wants them to view themselves) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

What strange times, when the commander of RAF Greenham Common is coming out as a liberal supporter of the right to protest

It's much easier to do a genocide if nobody sees it happen

that was literally the opposite of the problem

What an absolute waste of time and resources.

So expand the lanes! The problem is bikes and pedestrians fighting over like 12% of street space when the vast majority is dedicated to cars

you know I think it's fine to oppose GenAI purely on the basis that a lot of people are currently making a living out of being creatives, and drawing/painting/writing what others can't, doesn't have to be more complicated than that, I think you can just say that these jobs seem worth protecting

ACADEMIC READING ALREADY COMES WITH A SUMMARY IT IS CALLED THE ABSTRACT

This is going to sound crazy but what if we build a politics that understands women as constituents and ends into themselves rather than instruments or resources for men’s gratification

This isn't a list of jobs that A.I. can easily replace. It's a list of jobs that techno fascists don't think are worthwhile or meaningful and that they want to eliminate. They don't want humans to try to make sense of the world, they want us to believe whatever we're told.

For Women Scotland are the group behind the Supreme Court decision. Beth Upton has an unblemished record. They are calling her a pervert simply for being trans and for using women’s facilities.

This is the end result of anti-trans bigotry: more harassment of girls and women, more policing of gender roles, more gender McCarthyism.

I mean this is just outright hate speech. This is vile. Congratulations to everyone in our national parliament who fell over themselves to present this person as some kind of saint being unfairly persecuted by the vicious trans lobby. You should be ashamed. bsky.app/profile/jord...

The BBC News website has pages & pages of coverage related to farmers protesting inheritance tax, including events where only a few hundred turn out. In London yesterday 100,000 people marched for trans rights, and nothing. Imagine if it was 100,000 anti immigrant activists, they'd cover that.

The BBC crows about balance, then ignores 100,000 people marching for trans rights whilst platforming the same handful of transphobes over and over again. This is not journalism, it’s propaganda for profit. Read Helen’s article expanding on these thoughts here ⬇️

Very excited for Scotland's First Minister to be a grim footnote in the history of genocide in Gaza, cosying up to the Yanks' fascist wannabe dictator doing huge amounts to enable and allow said genocide, wonderful, not at all utterly sickening!

Again we see the incoherence of right-wing policy. Rounding up homeless people and imprisoning them *is* housing them! Punitive solutions to this problem also cost a shitload and require a massive bureaucracy. They are fine with providing housing, but only if it is ineffective and dehumanizing.

i hate the game politicians play where they back israel 100% until it starts killing too many people too fast, then they start calling for peace until the killing slows to levels acceptable for them. they're not opposing genocide, they're negotiating how quickly it should proceed

All famines are man-made, all famines are political. Historians of empire and humanitarianism have known this forever. Gaza is not starving, Gaza is being starved, by Israel, and this starvation is enabled by our government and by every other government that does not step in to force food and aid.

This whole thing is bizarre - even launching a party 4 years out from an election seems... optimistic, and the leaders are apparently communicating solely on twitter. I've had several pals ask my thoughts on it recently, who seem genuinely excited. But this is just shambolic.

this is one of the worst crimes in human history and the entire global north and all of us in it share the responsibility

oh absolutely fuck these moral fucking cowards

Any weaponisation of starvation is heinous, but the photo I've just seen of a child the same age as my youngest son where every bone is visible: what the Israeli government are doing in full view of the world is monstrous and unforgivable. That other states are allowing it is beyond an outrage.

with the suspension of Brian Leishman, the number of Scottish Labour MPs that you have to hand it to has returned to zero

Brian Leishman is my MP, and as a very non-labour gal I've been quite impressed with his willingness to speak up re. Gaza, welfare cuts, grangemouth. Govt. seems determined to punish and alienate it's own MPs in a way that seems quite desperate, esp. with 4 years until an election.