Julia Hartley-Brewer: Why is colonialism bad? Me: “When Britain arrived in 1700s, India had 27% of global GDP. After 200 years of theft and millions starved to death, by 1947 India had 3% of global GDP, 90% living below the poverty line, a literacy rate of 17% and life expectancy of 27”

Incredibly brave man. Next time a maniac commits some atrocity, remember that for every Islamic terrorist there are millions of peaceful Muslims just living a peaceful life. Or, like this wonderful guy, risking everything to save strangers of a different religion.

my favorite thing about the benoit blanc movies is that they aren't really about benoit blanc. he is not grappling with demons from his past. we are not getting flashbacks to the husband whose murder he never solved. he just shows up and does his job like mary poppins for homicides

I’ve been seeing this cover over and over and I just… In the original you’re aware of the horror of falling, but the body positions of the workers are solid on the beam. Here, most of them should be falling off, yet they don’t, because they live in an unreal, consequence-free space.

"I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards." - PHILIP K. DICK

So, what I'm hearing is that billionaires ought to be well able to deal with having to pay much more tax. Let's get on with that. Or guillotines.

The Serenity Prayer God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, like Donald Trump, and the strength to change the things I can, like the channel when he's on TV.

The one I really vibed to was this

today's moment of clarity; seeing a guy in cap that said "CONTENT CREATOR" and realising that most of the people on places like Twitter are discontent creators.

My dad abhors any negative comments about immigrants. Asked him recently why he’s so strong on it: ‘Because we’re always happy to take the rich and clever ones. Which means it’s not about disliking immigrants. It’s about disliking the poor and vulnerable. And that’s a bad human instinct.’

This stage of capitalism in a nutshell

100% correct about the value of the ‘Irish exit’. It always amazes me when people leaving early insist on making it extremely clear that they are leaving early. No one cares! Just go.

“Don’t replace the culture war with class war” is such a fun way of saying, “Please don’t unionize, I just bought a yacht that parks inside another yacht.”

Type Seven; I buy the songs in the hope that artists will be able to make an actual living out of singing

Quentin Tarantino is certainly following the Harlan Ellison arc, of enfant terrible smoothly metamorphosing over the years into an opinionated old arsehole. For a moment you think, "Well, how did that happen?" and then you recall that "enfant terrible" is French for "opinionated young arsehole."

The official publication date is still next Tuesday, but there’s a good explanation for the ebook being out earlier, which I’ve now forgotten. Anyway, it’s e-available now.

"And so it came to pass that Jesus returned and was born once again, this time out of a bottle of olive oil. And the people cried, 'Well, that was certainly unexpected, and my salad is ruined, but okay.'"

Movie idea: EUROPOP DEMON HUNTERS. Demons wish to bring Hell to Earth! A feisty pop group sings songs like "Una Paloma Blanca" and "The Birdy Song" to fool the diabolical army into believing that they've already won.

Just imagining how much better it would be if ALL news stories about vaccine-preventable illnesses were illustrated with pictures of people with the disease, not pictures of needle injections. If you must show something that people will find scary & unpleasant, make it the disease, not the cure.

“So the plan is to replace all their jobs with AI” Five minutes later: “what do you mean, broke people don’t spend as much?”

This is one of the things that's often missing from online discussions of anti-capitalist theory. The question that actually determines our socioeconomic status and fate is this: Do you live off what you're paid for your own labor, or off the profits you draw from the labor of others?

Not here, obviously. We've got enough problems

I've read enough cosmic horror to know where this particular combination of hobbies leads. Sad to see Gareth uncritically repeating Nyarlathotep talking points

All chess is 4D chess that's why they have that time clock thingy.

I don't feel entitled to have impostor syndrome.

We ask everyone outside of the car to be safe so that drivers can be dangerous

Strikes me that the finest cultural advice you could give to any voting population right now would be "Treat your politicians like plumbers." Both professions make a living from handling shit, and the better they handle it, the happier you are. But - 1/x

My cartoon for this week's @newscientist.com

Honestly think the easiest value to society you can add as a bloke is to stand up for women you don't know.

Sometimes it's not about happiness. Sometimes it's just about not letting a low mood spiral into something worse, & hanging on til bedtime.

If I were suddenly, and through no fault of my own, a multi-billionaire, how would *I* convice people that I wasn't an asshole? I would quietly spend money solving other people's problems until I was no longer a billionaire.

i fucking hate these people so much. "i spent the time working, reading and thinking" so you want a train. you want the bus. get on fucking public transit you absolute coward. or are you afraid of being next to god forbid someone poorer than you??

Newsom aside, this is good on Trump/MAGA.

the times I have done this - which are few, because you really need to be a good, proper friend to do it - are the things I feel proudest of probably in all the time I've spent online. 'I love you, I agree with you, it's not coming over how you hope which is so unfair. let's get icecream today?'

So much of the world’s knowledge hasn’t been digitised… and no chance the world’s tacit knowledge will be codified… yet so much nonsense is built on algorithmic analysis.

Every time I hear a politician say that an issue is “dividing” this country they always then come down on the side of the right wing view of it. Just once I’d love to hear someone say “this issue is divisive, which is why I’m making the argument that kindness and compassion is important”

Love to bike to work through the middle of the vehicular manslaughter arms race

The absolute balls on the person who designed eight digits, ran out of ideas and just flipped the 6 upside down and thought we wouldn't notice.

"Don't scold people who are trying to help" yeah the thing is, if you're trying to help me push my car out of the mud by standing on the shoulder telling me you know better than to run off the road and also my car pollutes the air, I am not obligated to thank you for your assistance.

daily reminder of that quote that the ruling class have forgotten that we have unions, laws, and democracy that prevents them being murdered in front of their families by an angry mob of people with pitchforks and molotovs

Out on December 9, available to preorder fromNewCon Press now. Do you believe in miracles?

Considering there is a detailed YouTube tutorial on how to correctly do every single task on earth, you would think we would be living in a golden age of human competence. However I am starting to worry that this is not the case

Something which I thought retirement had put in the rear view mirror.

“Within shotgun range of Jesus” is absolutely a country song and I refuse to believe otherwise

I dimly recall a woman who wrote in the Post years ago about actually leaving NYC for Florida over some [blank] or other and I remember thinking after reading it well whatever we did to drive her away we should definitely be doing way more of

Wait. Welcome to Derry isn't set in actual Derry?! That seems like a completely missed opportunity. Having said that, the first person Pennywise the Clown came across would have asked what primary school he went to and, having given the wrong answer, he'd have been fucked to bits with a claw hammer.

The numbers of Americans in the replies here screaming "but how do British people defend themselves?!" Well, mostly by almost entirely removing guns from public ownership. And they're going to hate this, but it works!