A billion dollars is the socio-economic equivalent of a loose nuke, and we should work to prevent the acquisition of the former with the same urgency and ruthlessness we use to prevent the acquisition of the latter.

It’s not a descent if you start at the bottom.

as much as i despise AI, i have to admit that it has made it possible for anyone, no longer just the very wealthy, to be a big adult baby who doesn't know how to interact with normal people and throws a fit whenever they don't get their way

I definitely see the problem that six men would have if all the rest of us decided to take everything they've stolen away from them.

It's not hyperbole in the least to say Musk purchased a six-month shadow presidency for $280 million and used the power of that shadow presidency to 1. Steal the government’s data, 2. Permanently damage the state’s ability to regulate his businesses, and 3, kill non-white people.

Oh shit, no! Whatever will we do if we can no longer attract the people who steal all our money and don't contribute any tax? www.thetimes.com/business/eco...

Yes, Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky coined the term “dark matter” which is impressive, but he also coined the term “spherical bastard” to describe people who are bastards no matter which way you look at them, and I think that should be celebrated more.

Zhang Shan won the gold medal for the mixed skeet shooting event in the 1992 Olympics. The International Shooting Union *immediately* banned women from competing against men.

When losing debates, oppressors always turn to tone policing. Weak argument? Attack the tone or resort to ad hominem shit.

The crucial thing to understand about Peter Thiel is that he adores "The Lord of the Rings" and no one in human history has ever so utterly completely missed all the salient points of what a book is about.

Just a thought: How about we stop shaming the poor for buying things that may not be essential, and start shaming the rich for making a profit off things that are essential?

I'm starting to think that 40 years of electing governments based on how little they think the state should do, might be the cause of how little the state can do.

We should be learning from other countries...

IT is really important because without it Isaac Newton would just have discovered gravy.

Billionaires threatening to leave if they’re taxed: I’m sorry are you laboring under the impression that you were going to be allowed to stay?

By far the most common and dangerous logical fallacy is one I rarely hear mentioned, which is, "Everyone who disagrees with me has been brainwashed by propaganda." The assumption, "informed, clear thinking will always lead to 100% agreement on my exact position" is EVERYWHERE.

Everyday I check whether the fuel protesters have finally set up outside Doonbeg & everyday I see that no, they've quite interestingly not included the man directly responsible for this fuel crisis in their protests. Hmm.

Ironically, not a Victor.

This is correct.

the year is 2026. you're a jewish american woman. the world leader you most respect is the catholic pope. everything's fine.

For real fun, apply a gender lens to a lot of these things. Female dominated occupations tend to be the ones that get slashed and cut and deemed to be things "anyone could do" and the acquired knowledge is denigrated and ignored.

the realest part of The Metamorphosis is how on top of everything he is still expected to show up at the office somehow

I’m honestly baffled: why is there not a single billionaire who just makes the call to Nick Allardice, GiveDirectly’s CEO? Instead, they fund vanity projects and call it philanthropy. The solutions exist but the ambition is pointed in the wrong direction.

I know that ad hominem is technically a logical fallacy, but it’s also an excellent shorthand for filtering out the worst people and saving yourself time and energy. If the worst person you know has an excellent point to make, it’s probably also been made by someone kinder and more intelligent.

Sorry I'm late. There was an online form and I had to scroll to my birth year.

The thing I think many peeps resistant to the idea of open borders fail to remember? The world already basically has open borders. If you have money. Seriously. Those with wealth can generally live wherever they want. Maybe everyone should have that opportunity.

A regular reminder to buy “A City on Mars” by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, a brilliant and funny book about the challenges of settling in space.

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." -Thomas Pynchon

If you’re using AI to write books, understand that’s not going to somehow get you respect or money like real writers who aren’t using AI to write books because we don’t get respect or money either.

If you don’t stop in mid-sentence to check a thing and then three hours later you’ve learned the entire history of canned food but not finished the sentence, why even be a writer?!

Using AI would defeat the entire purpose and pleasure of writing. I have no more interest in using AI to write than I have interest in letting another person run a marathon for me. The arrival isn't the point, nor the beauty of it.

Meanspirited, I know, but this seems relevant to the big event of the day

Why would I use "AI," I actually know how to fucking write

Fun fact, most catholics get yelled at by the pope exactly zero times in their whole lives but Censures Georg here has managed it like five times in six years

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

Privatisation is on average 40% more expensive than the Government doing it. So if you cancel $140bn of Privatisation spending you can replace it with $100bn of Government provided services. Cancel Privatisation.

Look, can we just please say trans people are people and leave it there? And can the jerks who want to pull down their undies to gape at what they've got down there please all yeet themselves straight into the sun?

Spain invested heavily in clean energy over the last 6 years. Now, as gas prices rise, Spain has some of the lowest electricity costs on the continent. In August 2025, Spain used zero coal — just 10 years ago it powered 25% of the country. This is what energy independence actually looks like. 🌎

Next president will have to rebuild the federal government while fighting a cadre of insane billionaires the whole way. The more bleak things get the more absurd it seems to consider electing some common weasel who wants to be president because he wants to be president

Via Mastodon:

I think we need to reset this clock because we have the *whole clock face* to use but because of grade inflation we’re now only using the last three minutes

Was just chatting with a taxi driver about this and it seems about 1000 taxi drivers have come together so far to create an alternative to the big apps. They hoping to bring more drivers in but they need people to use it. He asked that ppl try this app first! apps.apple.com/ie/app/tap-a...

the human body was not designed to know what the worst person in the world is doing every fifteen minutes

I'm an adult in the same way a tomato is a fruit.

The world does not need more undergraduate history essays but does need more people who can write good ones.

Quit saying humankind destroyed the planet. That can be refined to get the culprits. White supremacist capitalism ravages the planet destroying everything in its path with no regard to if anything’s left. Indigenous ways & non capitalist ways sustainably support humanity’s existence on earth.

One thing that AI evangelists seem to assume, particularly legal AI evangelists assume, is that the thinking and analysis is quick, and the writing is just tedious busywork that slows us down. But the writing IS the thinking and analysis. You work out the thinking and analysis by writing it down.

I think it's an over-simplification, saying the Soviet Union burned itself out trying to keep up with the United States. But I think it's dead-on accurate to say the United States is burning itself out trying to keep up with the United States.

Sad to see the Ides of March becoming commercialised like this. I really feel like we're losing track of the true spirit of the holiday. It's not about how many knives you can stick in a tyrant all at once, it's about the whole community coming together to stab the tyrant as many times as possible.